A TAJIK PERSIAN REFERENCE
GRAMMAR
BY
JOHN R. PERRY
1 6 8
BRILL
LEIDEN-BOSTON
2005
CONTENTS
Tables and Charts.........................................ХШ
Preface...................................................XV
Introduction...............................................1
CHAPTER ONE	. Phonology and Orthography..............13
1.1	Integration of Sound and Script...................13
PHONOLOGY..............................................15
1.2	Vowels (1): Stable and Unstable...................15
1.3	Vowels (2): Individual Qualities..................17
1.4	Vowels (3): Lowering, Glides, Diphthongs..........20
1.5	Consonants........................................22
MORPHOPHONOLOGY........................................25
1.6	Syl 1 ables and Stress............................25
1.7	Phonotactics......................................28
1.8	Alternation and Suppletion........................29
ORTHOGRAPHY............................................33
1.9	Writing Systems: Introduction.....................33
1.10	Cyrillic (1): General............................35
1.11	Cyrillic (2): Consonants..........................38
1.12	Cyrillic (3): Vowels and Semi-vowels.............39
1.13	Perso-Arabic (1): General........................43
1.14	Perso-Arabic (2): Vowels.........................47
1.15	Morphographics...................................51
1.16	Segmentation and Punctuation.....................56
CHAPTER TWO	. Morphology: Nominals...................61
2.1	General Observations..............................61
NOUNS..................................................61
2.2	Gender............................................61
2.3	Gender and Age....................................62
VI
CONTENTS
2.4	Number (1)...........................................63
2.5	Number (2)...........................................64
2.6	Number (3)...........................................65
2.7	Definiteness and Specificity (1).....................66
2.8	Definiteness and Specificity (2).....................69
2.9	Definiteness and Specificity (3).....................71
IZOFAT AND -RO............................................71
2.10	The izofat Constructions: Common Features...........71
2.11	Adjectival izjofat..................................
2.12	Nominal izofat (1}...................................74
2.13	Nominal izofat (2)...................................76
2.14	Nominal izofat (3)...................................77
2.15	Nominal izofat (4)...................................77
2.16	Particular izjofat. Structures.......................78
2.17	The Enclitic -ro.....................................79
2.18	Other Uses of-ro.....................................82
ADPOSITIONS...............................................84
2.19	Prepositions: Simple.................................84
2.20	Prepositions: Derived................................91
2.21	Prepositional Phrases (1)............................93
2.22	Prepositional Phrases (2)............................99
2.23	Postpositions.......................................101
2.24	Postpositions of Opportunity........................103
2.25	Circumpositions.....................................105
2.26	The Vocative........................................106
PRONOMINALS...............................................107
2.27	Personal Pronouns: Forms............................107
2.28	Personal Pronouns: Functions........................110
2.29	Pronominal Enclitics: Forms.........................112
2.30	Pronominal Enclitics: Functions.....................113
2.31	Demonstratives......................................117
2.32	Reflexive and Emphatic Pronouns.....................119
2.33	‘Other’, and Reciprocal Pronouns....................121
2.34	Interrogatives......................................123
2.35	Interrrogative Phrases..............................126
2.36	Indefinite and Specific Pronouns: ‘Some — ’.........127
CONTENTS
VII
2.37	Indefinite Pronouns and Adjectives...............129
2.38	Universal Pronouns: ‘Each, All, None; One’.......130
ADJECTIVES............................................133
2.39	General Features.................................133
2.40	Attributive Functions............................135
2.41	Predicative Functions............................137
2.42	Comparison of Adjectives.........................139
2.43	The Superlative..................................142
2.44	Similes, Intensives, Attenuatives................144
2.45	Quantifiers: ‘Much’ and ‘Little’.................147
ADVERBS...............................................148
2.46	Adverbs (1): General; Place and Time.............148
2.47	Adverbs (2): Degree and Manner...................154
2.48	Adverbs (3): Compound and Phrasal................158
NUMERALS..............................................161
2.49	Cardinal Numbers.................................161
2.50	Number Phrases (1)...............................163
2.51	Number Phrases (2)...............................165
2.52	Ordinal Numbers..................................166
2.53	Numerical Expressions............................168
2.54	Days, Dates, Time................................171
2.55	Everyday Mathematics.............................174
CHAPTER THR	EE. Morphology: Verbs....................177
VERB STRUCTURE........................................177
3.1	Overview.........................................177
3.2	Stem Classes (1).................................182
3.3	Stem Classes (2).................................183
3.4	Personal Inflections.............................194
3.5	Prefixes.........................................197
3.6	The Verb‘To Be’(1)...............................199
3.7	The Verb ‘To Be’ (2).............................203
3.8	The Verb ‘To Have’...............................206
CONJUGATIONS: SIMPLE..................................208
3.9	Tenses from the Aorist...........................208
VIII
CONTENTS
3.10	Present Indicative: Forms.........................209
3.11	Present Indicative: Functions.....................211
3.12	Simple Past.......................................212
3.13	Imperfect.........................................214
CONJUGATIONS. COMPOUND.................................216
3.14	Definite Future..................................216
3.15	Perfect Indicative................................217
3.16	Pluperfect Indicative.............................219
3.17	Stative Verbs.....................................221
PROGRESSIVE TENSES.....................................223
3.18	Present Progressive...............................223
3,19	Past Progressive..................................225
3.20	Other Progressive Constructions...................226
NON-WITNESSED MODE.....................................227
3.21	The Perfect as a Non-Witnessed Form...............227
3.22	Non-Witnessed Durative............................229
3.23	Non-Witnessed Past................................231
3.24	Non-Witnessed Past Progressive....................233
THE SUBJUNCTIVE........................................234
3.25	Present Subjunctive...............................234
3.26	Past Subjunctive..................................236
3.27	Durative Past Subjunctive.........................237
3.28	Present Progressive Subjunctive...................239
3.29	Imperative and Optative...........................240
CONJECTURAL MOOD.......................................243
3.30	The Conjectural Mood: Introduction................243
3.31	Past Conjectural..................................244
3.32	Present-Future Conjectural........................245
3.33	Present Progressive Conjectural...................246
PASSIVE VOICE..........................................247
3.34	Passive Voice: Forms..............................247
3.35	Passive Voice: Function (1).......................249
3.36	Passive Voice: Function (2).......................251
CONTENTS
IX
NON-FINITE FORMS.........................................253
3.37	Infinitives........................................253
3.38	Other Nouns of Action and Activity.................256
3.39	Verbal Adjectives and Adverbs......................258
3.40	Participles: General...............................260
3.41	Present Participle [kunanda].......................263
3.42	Future Participle [kardarii].......................264
3.43	Past Participles I and II..........................267
3.44	Past Participle II [kardagi].......................271
3.45	Present Progressive Participle [karda istoda/ .....274
3.46	Present-Future Participle [mekardagi]..............276
CHAPTER FOU	R. Syntax..................................279
PHRASE AND SIMPLE SENTENCE...............................279
4.1	The Noun Phrase....................................279
4.2	The Simple Sentence: Word Order....................283
4.3	Subject and Complement.............................285
4.4	Object Marking.....................................287
4.5	Gapping and Ellipsis...............................288
4.6	Verbal Agreement...................................290
4.7	Questions (1): Word Order and Intonation...........291
4.8	Questions (2): Particles...........................293
4.9	Responses and Exclamations.........................296
4.10	Sentence Adverbs and Enclitics.....................300
THE	COMPLEX SENTENCE..................................302
4.11	Coordinate Conjuncts: ‘and’........................302
4.12	Disjunctive Conjuncts..............................306
4.13	Parallel Conjuncts.................................308
4.14	Adversative Conjuncts..............................309
4.15	Sentential Complements (1): Ground Rules...........311
4.16	Sentential Complements (2): Particular Types.......316
4.17	Miscellaneous Sentential Complements...............318
4.18	Reporting Speech...................................321
4.19	Serial Verb Coordination...........................326
MODAL CONSTRUCTIONS......................................330
4.20	Necessity and Obligation...........................330
X
CONTENTS
4.21	Presumption, Probability, Possibility..............334
4.22	Ability............................................337
4.23	Volition...........................................340
4.24	The Verb Sudan.....................................342
4.25	Hortative, Inceptive, and Related Constructions....345
SUBORDINATE CLAUSES: PREPOSED............................349
4.26	General............................................349
4.27	Temporal Clauses (1)...............................353
4.28	Temporal Clauses (2)...............................356
4.29	The Conjunction to.................................358
4.30	Circumstantial Clauses.............................360
4.31	Substitution of ki in Preposed Clauses.............362
4.32	Adverbial Clauses of Place, Manner, Degree.........364
4.33	Miscellaneous Adverbial Clauses....................370
4.34	Concessive Clauses.................................371
CONDITIONAL SENTENCES....................................375
4.35	Conditionals (1): Basic Rules; Possible Conditions.375
4.36	Conditionals (2): Counterfactual...................378
4.37	Conditionals (3): Actual Conditions................379
4.38	Conditionals (4): Variations and Idioms............382
CLAUSES USUALLY POSTPOSED................................387
4.39	Temporal and Explanatory Clauses...................387
4.40	Clauses of Result and Purpose......................389
4.41	Postposed Clauses with to..........................392
RELATIVE CLAUSES.........................................394
4.42	Relative Clauses (1):	Synopsis.....................394
4.43	Relative Clauses (2):	Non Restrictive..............398
4.44	Relative Clauses (3):	Restrictive..................402
4.45	Relative Clauses (4):	Anomalies....................405
4.46	Relative Clauses (5):	Specialized	Types............407
4.47	Nominalizations....................................411
CHAPTER FIV	E. Lexis and Sociolinguistics..............415
NOMINALS: CONVERSION AND SUFFIXES........................415
5.1	Homonymy and Conversion............................415
CONTENTS
XI
5.2	Suffixes (1): Main Noun Formatives................418
5.3	Suffixes (2): Other Noun Formatives...............422
5.4	Suffixes (3): Main Adjective and Adverb Formatives..425
5.5	Suffixes (4): Other Adjective and Adverb Formatives.429
NOMINALS: PREFIXES AND COMPOUNDS.......................431
5.6	Prefixes..........................................431
5.7	Compounds: Determinative..........................435
5.8	Compounds: Possessive.............................436
5.9	Verb-Stem Agentives...............................437
5.10	Stem I Activity Nouns............................440
5.11	Coordinates and Phrases..........................441
5.12	Reduplication and Expressives..................  444
VERBS: DERIVATION......................................446
5.13	Denominal, Factitive, and Transitivizing Verbs...446
5.14	Causative Verbs (1)..............................448
5.15	Causative Verbs (2)..............................450
VERBS: COMPOSITION.....................................452
5.16	Complex Verbs (1)................................452
5.17	Complex Verbs (2)................................457
5.18	Composite Verbs (1)..............................459
5.19	Composite Verbs (2)..............................462
5.20	Conjunct Verbs (1)...............................467
5.21	Conjunct Verbs (2)...............................473
SOCIAL AND HISTORICAL NOTES............................477
5.22	Modes of Address.................................477
5.23	The Arabic Element...............................480
5.24	Lexical Distribution, Persian ~ Tajik............482
5.25	Uzbek and Turkic Influences......................484
5.26	Russian Influences...............................486
5.27	Chronology of Tajik Persian......................489
Bibliography..............................................493
Grammatical Index.........................................497
Cyrillic Index............................................505
Arabic Index..............................................513
TABLES AND CHARTS
Fig. 1.2	Tajik Vowels.........................................15
Fig. 1.5	Consonants...........................................23
Fig. 1.6	Statement Intonation Profiles........................28
Fig. 1.10	The Tajik Alphabet: Cyrillic and Latin...............37
Fig. 1.13	The Tajik Alphabet: Perso-Arabic.....................46
Fig. 2.7	Definiteness and Specificity in Nouns................68
Fig. 2.27	Personal Pronouns...................................108
Fig. 2.29	Pronominal Enclitics................................113
Fig. 2.49a	Numbers 0-19........................................161
Fig. 2.49b	Numbers 20 - 1000...................................162
Fig. 2.54	Months of the Tajik Year............................173
Fig. 3.1	Tentative Synopsis of the Tajik Tenses..............178
Fig. 3.3a	Irregular Verb Stems:
Infinitive —> Stem I (Present Stem)................186
Fig. 3.3b Irregular Verb Stems:
Stem I (Present Stem) —> Infinitive, Cyrillic..................190
Fig. 3.3c Irregular Verb Stems:
Stem I (Present Stem) —> Infinitive, Perso-Arabic..192
Fig. 3.4	Verb: Personal Endings..............................194
Fig. 3.6a	‘To Be’:	Enclitic Forms (Present Indicative)......200
Fig. 3.6b	‘To Be’:	Independent Forms (Present Indicative)...201
Fig. 3.6c	‘To Be’:	Negative (Present Indicative)............202
Fig. 3.7a	‘To Be’:	Aorist...................................203
Fig. 3.7b	‘To Be’:	Simple Past Tense........................206
Fig. 3.9a	Aorist: зистан/зи-	.................208
Fig. 3.9b	Aorist: гиристан/гиря-	 209
Fig. 3.10a	Present Indicative: кардан/ кун-
-3k ‘I do, am doing’...............................209
Fig. 3.10b	Present Indicative: омадан/ о(й)-	-(c$)T	 210
Fig. 3.10c	Present Indicative, omadan: Variants................211
Fig. 3.1	2	Simple Past: kardam ‘I did, made’...................213
XIV
TABLES AND CHARTS
Fig. 3.1	3 Imperfect: mekardam ‘I was doing,
used to do; would do’...........................................214
Fig. 3.1	4	Definite Future: xoham kard ‘I shall do’............216
Fig. 3.1	5	Perfect Indicative: kardaam ‘I have done’...........217
Fig. 3.1	6	Pluperfect Indicative: karda budam ‘I had done’.....219
Fig. 3.1	8	Present Progressive: karda istodaam ‘I am doing’....224
Fig. 3.1	9	Past Progressive: karda istoda budam
‘I was doing/ making’...............................225
Fig. 3.2	2 Non-Witnessed Durative: mekardaast
‘he is (evidently) doing/used to do/ will do’...................229
Fig. 3.2	3 Non-Witnessed Pluperfect: karda budaast
‘he (evidently) had done’.......................................231
Fig. 3.2	4 Non-Witnessed Past Progressive: karda istoda
budaast ‘he was (evidently) doing/ making’......................233
Fig. 3.2	5 Present Subjunctive: kunam ‘(that) I do/ make’.......234
Fig. 3.2	6 Past Subjunctive: karda bosam ‘I might have done’ ....236
Fig. 3.2	7 Durative Past Subjunctive: mekarda bosam
‘I might have done/ be doing’...................................237
Fig. 3.2	8 Present Progressive Subjunctive: karda istoda
bosam ‘I may be doing’..........................................239
Fig. 3.3	1 Past Conjectural: kardagist- /-gi- ‘I suppose
[he] did; [you] might have done’, etc...........................244
Fig. 3.3	2 Present-Future Conjectural: mekardagist-/ -gi-
‘[he] might be doing/ about to do’, etc.........................245
Fig. 3.3	3 Present Progressive Conjectural: karda istoda-
gist-l -gi- ‘[he] might be doing’, etc..........................246
Fig. 3.4	0 Participles: Characteristic Features................261
Fig. 3.4	2 Participial Quasi-Future Tense: kardaniam
‘I am going to do, intend doing’................................265
Fig. 4.7	Question Intonation Profiles..........................293
PREFACE
This work aims to provide quick, easy, and comprehensive access to
the grammatical structures of Tajik Persian of Central Asia, as used in
writing and educated speech from the early years of the twentieth
century onward. The detailed lists of contents and tables, plus three
separate indexes, will enable users at any level of competence, whether
familiar with the Cyrillic or the Perso-Arabic writing system, to find a
particular paradigm or syntagm with illustrations of usage. The range
and types of Tajik exemplified and the approach and procedures em-
ployed here are described in the first three sections of the Introduction;
grammatical terms and abbreviations used are defined in the last three
sections.
Tajik Persian has been changing rapidly in the past three generations.
This is partly a response to natural processes as its speakers come to
grips with political and social upheavals; partly due to the influence of
Uzbek, Russian and other foreign languages; and in particular the
result of two waves of government-sponsored linguistic engineering. It
is one of the objects of this grammar to note aspects of these changes,
the better to meet the various needs of scholars and students as this
remarkable language approaches its centenary (or, from a broader
perspective, the fifth decade of its second millennium).
My debt to the work of other scholars may be gauged from the
Bibliography; Gilbert Lazard, Lutz Rzehak, and Gernot Windfuhr merit
particular mention for personal help and encouragement beyond their
publications. I am happy to acknowledge an award from the U.S.
Department of Education under the Title VI International Research
and Studies Program during 2002-03, which enabled me to undertake
this project unencumbered by academic duties. Sincere thanks are due
to several Tajik friends and colleagues for direct and indirect assistance
with grammatical points, notably Gulnora Aminova, Azim Baizoyev,
and especially HadiyaNazirova. I am particularly grateful to multiliterate
metagrammarian Judith Wilks for her meticulous copy-editing and
XVI
PREFACE
proofing, and for applying a user’s perspective to some potentially
opaque passages. The expert advice of Brill’s editor, and of the an-
onymous reader, provided a further safety net. Any shortcomings in
the final product are to be laid at my door alone.
Chicago, September 2004
INTRODUCTION
History and Actuality
Tajik Persian, or Tajik for short (zaboni tojiki, zaboni forsii tojik), is
the variety of New Persian used in Tajikistan and parts of Uzbekistan,
including the cities of Bukhara and Samarkand. Since the 1920s it has
been fostered as the national and literary language of the Soviet Socialist
Republic (from 1991, the independent Republic) of Tajikistan. Other
designations in English are the older “Tadzhik” (through Russian, hence
the unnecessary tri graph dzh) and the newer “Tajiki” or “Tojiki,” which
seem almost as un-English in a different way.
The Tajik and Iranian Persian speech areas are not contiguous, but
lie at opposite ends of a continuum with Persian dialects of Afghanistan
in between, and interrupted by areas of Turkic (Turkmen and Uzbek)
speech. Spoken Tajik has been evolving independently of Persian of
Iran since at least the sixteenth century, but the written language (which
functioned as the common language of high culture, government and
diplomacy in Iran, Central Asia, and India) maintained a near-universal
standard, based on Classical Persian, until the early decades of the
twentieth century (see Chronology, 5.26).
In the Soviet period, with the promotion of a more vernacular style
and lexicon and the systematic introduction of Russian loanwords,
language change was more rapid. The writing system was switched
from Arabic to Latin (on regular phonemic principles) in 1928, then to
Cyrillic (following Russian-specific rules) in 1939. The modern literary
language (zaboni adabii hozirai tojik), as planned and exemplified by
Soviet Tajik writers of the 1920s and 1930s, was based loosely on the
style of the old cultural center, Bukhara; it contained many Uzbek
loanwords and some syntactic structures calqued on Uzbek usage. In
recent decades writers from different regions of Tajikistan, and some
who have traveled abroad, have been introducing a more varied style,
including features closer to Persian of Iran.
Literacy is now defined not as the eradication of a previous script
2
INTRODUCTION
and its replacement by one more ideologically correct, but as education
in the current revised Cyrillic, plus the Perso-Arabic of the Classics
and the neighboring Persian-speaking states, plus the Latin of the
Western world. Post-modern Tajik is still in transition. Apart from the
vacillations in orthography and style which can be seen in literature
and the press, there are undoubtedly shifts in pronunciation and idiom
underway as demographic fluctuations change the composition of urban
populations and the nature of interregional links.
In the space of a mere two generations, Tajik has been one of the
most consciously, intensively, and rapidly “planned” languages ever—
both at the stage of Russianization (late 1920s to 1950s) and again
during re-Persianization (late 1980s onward). It has three complementaiy
identities: as a linear descendant of the conservative literary standard
historically dominant in the region (Classical Persian); as a distinct
modem written variety of international Persian, closely related to modem
Persian of Iran (jarsi) and of Afghanistan (dariy and as a cluster of
regional dialects, of which the Northern group is strongly Turkicized
(see 5.24). Given such a complex history and politico-cultural economy,
and a future again on the drawing board, what should a comprehensive
current grammar of this language aspire to be?
There are available a number of Tajik grammars of limited scope
for specialized readerships. Rastorgueva’s “sketch” (1954) is an excel-
lent short (Russian-style and Russocentric) linguistic description of
Modern Literary Tajik (MLT) as conceived and nurtured up to its
zenith. The three-volume grammar of Rustamov et al. (in Tajik,
completed in 1989, on the eve of the dissolution of the USSR) profits
from six decades of Tajik writing to provide a wealth of examples of
all stages of MLT, but like all committee products it is uneven in
theory and exposition. Studies by foreign linguists from the perspective
of Iranian or Afghan Persian (Birnbaum, Farhadi, Lazard, Raja’i) fill
in some of the blanks in terms of historical and regional variations. A
new generation of teaching manuals for the post-Soviet language,
presuming no collateral language experience, is already in action (e.g.,
Rzehak 1999, Baizoyev and Hayward 2004). Each type may claim to
be a grammar of Tajik to some extent, but none is truly comprehensive.
INTRODUCTION
3
Colloquial and Dialect Usage
Tajik dialectology is too large (and incomplete) a topic to attempt to
summarize in what is primarily a grammar of the written language.
However, the written language as codified during the 1920s-1930s
was explicitly based upon a particular dialect group, and socialist
ideology consciously privileged vernacular usage in general over what
was seen as emulation of calcified Classical models by a tiny literate
elite. The following observations are confined to such aspects of regional
dialect and spoken usage as have palpably affected the written language,
and as such may be mentioned in passing in the Grammar.
Tajik dialects may be divided broadly into two groups: Northwestern
and Southeastern, corresponding in rough topographical terms to the
lowlands and highlands respectively of the Oxus basin. Several refine-
ments of this scheme have been proposed, and much fieldwork remains
to be done. The scheme adopted here distinguishes four groups:
(1)	Northern, comprising Bukhara, Samarkand, and Derbend in Uzbek-
istan, the Ferghana Valley (including Khujand), and extending down
the Varzob valley to the region of the capital, Dushanbe.
(2)	Central, comprising the upper Zarafshon valley.
(3)	Southern, stretching south and east of the capital, in Kulob and
Qarotigin regions, including Gharm, as far as the Pamirs.
(4)	Southeastern, in Mountain Badakhshan and adjacent areas.
Only the first three, which have been to an extent exemplified in
literature, are referred to in the Grammar (chiefly in respect of variants
in verb paradigms).
Northern dialects have been influenced to varying degrees by Uzbek,
with which there is widespread bilingualism (5.24). A distinctive sub-
variety of Northern Tajik speech, with its own literature, is the Judeo-
Persian of the Bukhara Jews, most of whom have emigrated. Some
Southern and Southeastern dialects have strong affinities with those of
the left bank of the upper Oxus in Afghanistan’s province of Badakhshan.
Tajik is also the contact vernacular (called forsT) of Mountain Badakh-
shan, extending into Afghanistan and Wakhan. In these regions the
mother tongue of a majority of the population is one of the Eastern
Iranian dialects of the Pamir group, related distantly to Tajik Persian
4
INTRODUCTION
but far from mutually comprehensible with it. The so-called Tajiks of
southwest Xinjiang, in and around Tashqurghon, are speakers of the
Pamir languages Sarikoli and Wakhi, not Persian.
It was in fact a literary variety of Northern speech, not a transcription
of the vernacular, that came to form the basis of modern Tajik Persian.
This special language variety, devised for educational purposes, was
an invention of the Jadids of the Bukhara emirate, reformists such as
Abdulvohid Munzim, Abdurauf Fitrat, and Sadriddin Ayni (Aini). At
the dawn of the twentieth century, these men founded modern schools
for Persian-speaking youth and devised a practical form of Persian in
which to teach a modern curriculum. From the outset, both script and
style were a compromise: the Perso-Arabic of the primers varied the
traditional spelling to accommodate local pronunciation, and madrasa-
inspired catechisms were wrapped in the near-Uzbek syntax of village
speech. But its origins in Perso-Arabic script ensured that, even in its
later Latin and Cyrillic versions, this language could be read as a
variety of literary Persian, and not as a transcription of one or the other
local dialects: not as, e.g., /dassota tirt/ for ‘give [me] your hands’, but
dast-ho-yat-ro dihed л_< ba I j cj-jLa q , ..j,
Dushanbe was a small market town before its promotion to national
capital in 1924 and the consequent influx of Tajiks from elsewhere in
the region, of Russians and other Soviet nationalities, and above all of
the Bukharan literary elite (since Bukhara and Samarkand were allotted
to Uzbekistan). Though nominally included in the Northern dialect
area, this instant metropolis for long lacked a stable demographic through
which to exercise its linguistic status. Since independence it is again in
a state of demographic fluctuation, the home of writers and speakers
from other regions with other styles.
Purpose and Procedures
The variety of Tajik described here is for the most part that of the bulk
of the extant literature, Modern Literary Tajik (MLT) of the Soviet
era, with the beginnings of lexical and stylistic reform as undertaken
from the late 1980s. Quotations retain the original spelling, but most
of the material follows the orthographic reforms of 1998. In order to
INTRODUCTION
5
balance the needs of various users—the historical and descriptive
linguist, the reader of Soviet-era sources and literature, and the student
and teacher of contemporary Tajik—the present work adopts the view
that a historically-informed grammar of a language barely eighty years
old can coexist with a grammar of the contemporary idiom as it evolves.
This perspective is reinforced by the Iranist view that the language is
not eighty, but actually over a thousand, years old, and is now renewing
old family connections that were obscured, but not severed, during the
past century.
The Grammar thus aims to furnish a comprehensive reference to
the structures of written Tajik Persian from the heady days of inter-
national socialist idealism in the 1920s, through the rise, stagnation,
and fall of Russian communism, into the independence of the twenty-first
century. It therefore includes a grammar of essential aspects of Persian
at large, which remain at the core of Tajik, and an explanation of the
Uzbek- and Russian-influenced aspects of the syntax and lexicon that
contribute to the uniqueness of Tajik Persian.
To serve readers of Persian who may not need to cope with the
Cyrillic writing system, every literary example (and each index refer-
ence) is presented in Perso-Arabic script as well as Cyrillic; all but a
few dialect citations in Roman transcription are also normalized in
both Tajik scripts. The Perso-Arabic spelling of some Russian loanwords
(since they have never been, and may never be, written in the Arabic
alphabet) is arbitrary, and that of some recent foreign borrowings is
not yet standardized; where necessary, examples are also given in
transliteration and phonemic transcription. The system used is set out
in Sections 1.9 -10, where the writing systems of Tajik are explained.
Transcription of Standard Persian, where used for comparison, differs
from that used for Tajik in the representation of the vowels (see 1.10).
To gloss the examples, I have chosen idiomatic rather than literal
translation, which may be followed in parentheses by a closer gloss
(see Conventional Signs, below). Primary stress (1.6) is indicated where
necessary by an acute accent on the vowel of the stressed syllable, and
secondary stress by a grave accent. These may appear in transcription,
transliteration, or Cyrillic text; in the latter case, it should be remembered
that they are not part of the original orthography. Italics are used in
6
INTRODUCTION
Latin script only, not in Cyrillic (see 1.10).
Words in Cyrillic are presented with their morphemes separated by
short hyphens whenever this is judged helpful. However, use of this
device is kept to a minimum, since it obscures norms of Cyrillic ortho-
graphy such as the dropping of the macron from final -й before an
affix (1.12), and the general tendency to write words maximally defined
(including affixes and auxiliaries) as a single unit (1.16). The reader
should assume that hyphenated Cyrillic words are normally written as
one, unless a longer hyphen, the n-dash, is used: this indicates that the
word is normally so hyphenated in Cyrillic (or Perso-Arabic). Systematic
morpheme-separation is not practicable in Perso-Arabic script.
Grammatical and linguistic terms used are, so far as possible, limited
to the conventional and generally known. Those which may have another
or more general meaning are capitalized when used in their specialized
sense. The Tajik grammatical terms are not used; significant ones will
be noted in passing. Any terms not in common use, or used differently
in the present work, will be glossed where introduced, or may be
found below under Definitions.
One distinction preserved here is that between form and function.
It would be misleading, for example, to call the English verb form
ending in -ing “the present participle” as a label of identity, since it
functions not only as the present (or active) participle (we are going
there), but also in a different nominal category as the gerund or activity
noun (go while the going is good). Similarly there are identical verb
forms in Tajik with more than one category and function. Thus the
Imperfect tense (me-kard-am, etc.) will be described in a single paradigm,
but contextually illustrated as a Durative Past or a Conditional (cf. the
term Aorist below, under Definitions; this also may have three functions).
Definitions
Aorist. In Tajik, the finite verb form consisting of the (present) stem
and personal endings, without any prefix; corresponds usually to
the Present Subjunctive, but in some verbs to the Present Indicative,
and in one an auxiliary.
Aspect. A way of viewing an action or event, e.g., as being accomplished
INTRODUCTION
7
at once (punctual: the stone fell), as being in progress without
regard to its completion (progressive: he is swimming), as happening
habitually or repeatedly (habitual, iterative: we used to go swimming).
Aspect is independent of the time at which a verb records the
action as taking place (tense), but tense and aspect (as well as
mood and voice, q.v.) combine to encode an action in a standard
form, the “tense” in its everyday use and as presented in six-person
paradigms.
Classical Persian. The literary form of Persian exemplified in texts
from the 11th century ce, and used in some contexts and genres
until modem times.
Complex, Composite, Compound. Complex verbs are those consisting
of a simple verb and a preverbal particle (cf. English phrasal verbs;
5.15). Composite verbs are those comprising a simple verb plus a
noun, adjective, or other lexical component (5.17). The term
Compound is reserved for nominals and for tenses of verbs with
more than one part.
Enclitic. A grammatical unit attached to the end of a word, clarifying
a syntactic relation; English possessive 5 in its, copulative s in it’s
(= it is) are (different) enclitics. In Tajik, enclitics do not carry
stress (contrast Suffix).
Explicit plural. A form of the verb ending or pronoun referring to an
actual plurality of persons, as distinct from a plural form referring
politely to a singular addressee.
Formative. A morph (q.v.) which when added (typically as a prefix or
suffix) to a word or a stem forms a new word of a particular class:
-ed in English is the usual Past Tense formative.
Izofat, Split. An adjectival noun phrase in which the Indefinite/ Non-
Specific enclitic -e is added to the head noun, as in kas-e digar
‘someone else’ (2.11).
Izofat, Mute. A Nominal or Adjectival izofat in which the connecting
enclitic -i is not pronounced or written, as in sohib-mansab ‘office-
holder’ (5.10).
Mirative. A function of the Non-Witnessed mode: the speaker is
unexpectedly aware of a situation or suddenly appreciates its
significance (3.21).
8
INTRODUCTION
Modern Literary Tajik (zaboni adabii hozirai tojik), MLT. Literary
Tajik Persian as codified during and after the 1930s under Soviet
direction, and exemplified in the works of such as Sadnddin Aini,
Rahim Hoshim, Jalol Ikromi, and Sotim Ulughzoda. It is charac-
terized by vernacular constructions, particularly of the Northern
dialects, such as the idiomatic use of participles, and in later works
by the incorporation of Russian vocabulary. MLT is described in
the three-volume grammar by Rustamov et al., published by the
Tajikistan Academy of Sciences in 1985-89. It began to give way
during the Perestroika period of the late 1980s to a less regimented
style open to influences from a broader dialect range and Persian
of Iran.
Mode. Applied here to the verbal category of Non-Witnessed action
(Taj. siga-i naqti, 3.21-24; also called the evidential, or non-evident,
mode or viewpoint). This is an epistemic set of the Indicative
mood, indicating by tense form that the information conveyed was
obtained not by direct observation but through collateral sources,
as hearsay, inference, or sudden realization. The term ‘mode’ is
also applied to verbal constructions and particular verbs (modal
auxiliaries) expressing ability, obligation, potential, etc.
Mood. In this grammar, applied to the traditional verbal categories of
Indicative (the unmarked set of tenses expressing unqualified
statements and questions); Subjunctive (the set expressing contingent
or unreal actions), and its related or subsidiary modes of Prohibitive,
Optative, Precative, and Imperative (though traditionally this last
is classed as a separate mood); and the Tajik category of the
Conjectural (3.30-33), a set of three tenses expressing an unsupported
presumption of the action.
Morph. A significant lexical or grammatical unit smaller than a word,
which does not necessarily have an independent lexical meaning
{lex, ic-al, and ing are morphs: one a nominal stem, one a complex
adjectival formative, one a gerundial or participial suffix).
Noun Phrase. Used here in its broadest sense, a nominal (noun or
pronoun) together with its typical adjuncts, such as plural suffix,
article, determiner, adjective or other modifiers (e.g., a bucket of
green paint', these strange men in the bedroom)—seen as a
INTRODUCTION
9
component of a sentence, usually as subject, object, or complement
(cf. VP).
Quasi-passive. In Tajik Persian, an intransitive composite verb form
with an auxiliary such asyoftan ‘to receive’ orxurdan ‘to undergo’,
correlating with a transitive verb using an auxiliary such as dodan
‘to provide’ orzadan ‘to inflict’ (5.18).
Quasi-tense. A verbal construction in which a participle and an auxiliary
combine to express a particular aspect-time; it differs from a
recognized tense in that the auxiliary may take different tenses, or
other auxiliaries may be used (3.20, 3.42).
Quotative Past, English. The past tense in English sentential comp-
lements of speech reported, and events perceived or experienced,
as in she said that she was sick and would not come (actual words:
“I am sick, and will not come”), or / realized they were coming to
get me (actual perception: “they are coming to get me”). It arises
from a sequence-of-tense rule that views the event from the time
frame of the reporter, and copies the tense used to record it subsequent
to the event (the past, or past future). This is at odds with Tajik
usage, which usually views the event from the time frame of the
participant and copies the tense used in the actual utterance, or
which would have been used had the participant voiced the
experience or commented on his or her perception at the time (the
present, or present future).
Since the present English glosses of Tajik sentences aim to be
idiomatic, it will occasionally be necessary to draw attention to
this idiosyncrasy of English in order not to confuse the discussion
of Tajik tense use. Example: mardi hezumkas did ki dar yak jo
hezum jam’ suda xobida ast ‘the woodcutter saw that the firewood
had been gathered together and was lying in one place’. (The English
“quotative past” disguises in translation the true present time of
xobidaast ‘is lying’.)
Sentential pronoun. A Tajik demonstrative pronoun serving as a prop
for a preposition or conjunction, and referring forward to the
sentential complement; e.g., Zaynab sod bud az on, ki vay bo Muxtor
sarik ast ‘Zaynab was happy to be a partner of Mukhtor’ (‘...happy
from the fact that she is a partner...’).
10
INTRODUCTION
Standard Persian. Modern literary and educated spoken Persian of
Iran.
Speculative simile. Also called a ‘comparative clause’, this is a phrase
or clause introduced by the expression ‘as if’ (Taj. rye L>jS. giiyo).
Suffix. A formative, usually lexical or semantic (e.g., of the plural),
added to the end of a word; in Tajik, a suffix is stressed (contrast
Enclitic).
Voice. Whether a verb is Active (John saw Mary) or Passive (Mary
was seen [by John]).
Verb Phrase. A phrase of which the head is a verb. In its broadest
sense, the verb and all its adjuncts (preverbs, adverbs or adverbial
phrases, and any object or complement), as a component of a
sentence, distinct from any noun phrases constituting the subject.
More narrowly, the verb alone, or the VP excluding the object or
complement NP; thus, thought up a solution immediately, or thought
up a solution, or thought up may each be treated as a VP, according
to the kind of analysis required.
Word order. The acceptable sequence of the constituents of a phrase
or sentence. The main constituents are abbreviated as S (subject),
О (object), V (verb), which include the extensions into NP and VP.
Other constituents are Adv. (adverbial phrase) and Prep, (prepo-
sitional phrase).
Conventional Signs
Italics are used in Latin characters for transliteration from Cyrillic
(obed ‘lunch’), for transcription from Perso-Arabic or dialect (Taj.
bosed, Per. basid), and to cite a word in any language as a linguistic
example (Eng. doing).
[ ] In Tajik paradigms, syntagms, or examples, brackets enclose vari-
ables of the same category, e.g., nouns, pronouns, or verb stems,
any of which are subject to the same rule or structure; also used
to cite paradigms in the Indexes.
In English glosses they enclose literal versions (inside single
quotes), or material that is useful for an idiomatic English trans-
lation, but which does not appear in the original.
INTRODUCTION
11
( ) In English glosses, parentheses enclose optional or supplementary
words or phrases, or material that appears in the original, but
may not be essential to the translation.
{ } Braces are used hierarchically (in Cyrillic and Perso-Arabic exam-
ples) to separate or enclose nested phrases or clauses, the better
to illustrate sentence structure.
/ A slash separates alternatives. In English glosses, alternative trans-
lations are divided by phrase or clause.
/ / Slant lines enclose phonemic transcription; e.g., /abyet/ ‘lunch’.
= Precedes a normalization, in Cyrillic and Perso-Arabic, of a trans-
cription of oral material in dialect or colloquial speech.
<	(Derived) from, originating in
>	Becomes, changes to, generates
* An asterisk preceding a word or phrase means it is not used, or is
grammatically unacceptable in this form or context.
Abbreviations
(Def. means See the Definition in the list above)
adj.	adjective	MLT	Modern Literary Tajik (Def.)
adv.	adverb	nom.	nominal
Ar.	Arabic	NP	Noun Phrase (Def.)
colloq. colloquial		obj.	(direct) object
cons.	consonant	Pl-	plural
CP	Classical Persian (Def.)	prep-	preposition(al)
Cyr.	Cyrillic	prov.	proverb or catchphrase
dial.	dialect	Rus.	Russian
Eng.	English	Sg-	singular
esp.	especially	SOV	see Word order (Def.)
Fr.	French	SP	Standard Persian (Def.)
Ger.	German	Taj.	Tajik
Imper.	Imperative	tr.	transitive
intr.	intransitive	Uz.	Uzbek
lit.	literal(ly), before a gloss;	var.	variant
	literary (stylistic register)	VP	Verb Phrase (Def.)
CHAPTER ONE
PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY
1.1	Integration of Sound and Script
The fundamentals of the sound system of Tajik Persian (1.2-8) may in
theory be appreciated without reference to either of the two principal
writing systems, which are expounded in Sections 1.9-14. The three
parts may be approached independently, hence examples will be provided
in one or more forms (transcription and/ or transliteration, Cyrillic,
Perso-Arabic) only to the extent necessary for the particular illustration.
However, the beginner is advised to refer forward to Tables 1.10 and
1.13, the better to appreciate how the Cyrillic and the Perso-Arabic
scripts interact. By way of preparation, these and the other writing
systems of Tajik Persian may be characterized briefly as follows.
Perso-Arabic script is superabundant in consonants, and deficient
in vowels. It retains eight redundant Arabic-specific consonants, while
neglecting to mark three short (or “unstable”) vowels (except for
occasional diacritics; see 1.13). In the case of short /i/ this deficiency
obscures the presence or absence of the grammatical izofat (2.10). The
system also fails to distinguish /и/ from /й/ (writing either of these
indiscriminately with j or with nothing) and /i:/ from /е/ (writing both
with <_$); this latter ambiguity also has morphemic importance word-
finally, where it involves three suffixes in -i and an enclitic in -e
(1.13). The script tends to minimize ambiguity and homonymy in Arabic
loanwords, while maximizing them for the Persian, Russian, and other
vocabulary.
Cyrillic has four redundant characters (the yotated vowels, which
represent syllables rather than single phonemes; 1.12) and, unless one
accepts the absence of long vowels (1.2), it fails to distinguish the two
vowel pairs I'd from /i:/ and /и/ from /и:/. It has two ambivalent semi-
vowels, e and и (in addition to their post-consonantal values as /е/ and
Id, after vowels they represent /уе/ and /yi/). It tends to minimize
14
CHAPTER ONE
obscurity and homonymy in Persian, Russian, and other non-Arabic
vocabulary, while maximizing them for Arabic loanwords.
The modified Latin alphabet that was in use briefly during 1928-1940
proved capable of representing simply and unambiguously the sounds
and structures of Tajik Persian (1.9). Even this was hobbled by a
decision to ignore the distinction between the two pairs of long and
short vowels and, like Cyrillic, it had to tolerate a high ratio of homonymy
for Arabic loanwords. Hebrew script, used by the Jews of Bukhara and
Samarkand, applied a more explicit vowel system than Arabic and was
to an extent a fair compromise between phonographic and etymological
spelling; however, as the system of a religious minority, it was impractical
to extend its scope.
Cyrillic, without the flexibility and precedent of Latin as a neutral
system of notation, remains confusingly Russian-specific. Perso-Arabic,
for all its etymological spelling and vowel deficiency (which can at a
pinch be circumvented with diacritics), enjoys the cultural advantage
of displaying in one and the same orthography the common vocabulary
of its traditional kulturbund (as do, for example, English and French,
with a comparable degree of disconnection between spelling and speech).
There is no universally satisfactory solution; within its limitations,
each of the systems displays considerable ingenuity in representing a
language which defeats the scholar’s best efforts to craft even a consistent
transcription-cum-transliteration.
Homonymy in Tajik, through phonetic and/ or orthographic coin-
cidence of unrelated words, is more frequent than in SP, for two reasons:
(1) The merging of former long and short vowel pairs in some dialects
tended to remove a disambiguative contrast between, e.g., бино I .
/bi:no/ ‘sighted, seeing’ and бино Lb /bind/ ‘building’ (see 1.2); with
the change to Latin and then Cyrillic orthographies designed for Tajik
on the basis of vernacular pronunciation, this vowel merger was generally
fixed in the written form too.
(2) Application of a phonographic script (Latin, Cyrillic) removed some
distinctions afforded by different (Arabic) consonants for the same
sounds in Tajik, as in jJbu ‘concealment, veil’; jk ... ‘line (of writing)’
(bothcaTp /satr/), or cjjUJ ‘command, emirate’; cujLa-c ‘cultivation;
building’ (both иморат Zimorat/). This involves mainly literary vocab-
PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY
15
ulary. Nevertheless, dictionaries of homonyms are quite useful in
Cyrillic-script Tajik; a recent one (M. Назриева, Лугати омонимх,ои
забони тоники, 1992) runs to 240 pages and some 2,000 entries.
PHONOLOGY
1.2 Vowels (1): Stable and Unstable
According to the canons of Modern Literary Tajik as established in the
1930s, there are six vowel phonemes in standard Tajik Persian, articulated
as follows (those boxed are the so-called “unstable” vowels; see below).
Fig. 1.2 Tajik Vowels___________
________Front Central Back
High Ш	И
Mid e ii о
Low	|a |
In both Standard Persian (SP) and Tajik the eight-vowel inventory of
Middle and Early New Persian has been reduced to six, but in quite
different ways. In Persian of Iran the two long mid vowels /e:7 and /o:7
(the so-called majhul ‘unfamiliar’, i.e., non-Arabic, vowels, as in CP
ser j ' ‘lion’ and roz ‘day’) collapsed with the long high vowels
/i:7 and /u:/ (as in sir j__j_Д ‘milk’ and rild j‘river*); whereas in
some varieties of Central Asian Persian, length was neutralized by the
merger of the short and long high vowels and the rounding of long
back /a:/ in the direction of /о/, as in Fig. 1.1.
Thus Tajik lei and lul are the successors of the old majhul long
vowels; /i/ and /и/ are the continuation of the Classical ma’ruf or
Persian long vowels,but they additionally represent the corresponding
short vowels (as in dil Jj ‘heart, stomach’ and but ‘idol’); and lol
is the continuation of the long back vowel /a:/, as in CP and SP ^IjL
‘almond’ (badam in the usual transliteration).
The asymmetrical position of lul is due to its having merged with
Uzbek /й/ (orig. common Turkic vowels /о/ and lul); thus the same
vowel appears in Tajik borrowings from Uzbek, e.g., кйтак ‘help’,
16
CHAPTER ONE
kurpa ‘quilt’ (see also 1.14).
The Classical opposition of long vs. short vowels has been preserved
as the basis of the literary prosodic system (aruz; see below), but is no
longer fully applicable to the spoken varieties of either Iranian or
Central Asian Persian. It has been argued that the phonemic contrast of
length has been replaced in both dialects by a contrast between stable
and unstable vowels.1 The stable vowels of Tajik, which are phonetically
invariant, are the mid (half-close) vowels /е/, /й/ and /о/ (unboxed in
Fig. 1.1); these do not change appreciably in length or quality in any
position. The unstable vowels, in which length and quality of articulation
may vary according to the phonetic environment, are /i/, /и/ and /а/.
Thus in stressed position and unstressed closed syllables (CVCC),
the unstable vowels are equivalent in length to the three stable vowels:
/рап(г/ ‘cheese’, /mizgon/ ‘eyelashes’; /durug/ ‘lie, untruth’, /duxtar/
‘girl’; /d'gar/ ‘other’, /haStod/ ‘eighty’, as in the syllables underlined.
In unstressed open syllables (seen also in three of the words above),
they may be shortened and reduced to a schwa /а/ or elided. Further
examples: /did/ ‘(s)he saw’, /d'mog/ ‘nose’; /dud/ ‘smoke’, /g“d6z/
‘melting’; /bad/ ‘bad’, /b’dan/ ‘body’.
“May be” does not mean “must be,” and in fact lexis and morphology
still trump phonology. Thus дидор jl j_ij /di:dor/ ‘meeting, visit; coun-
tenance’ retains a long (or “stable vowel equivalent”) first syllable
because it is a derivative of the verb Stem II did- ‘see’. This is too
significant a segment to be reduced simply because it happens to fall in
an open syllable before a stressed stable vowel; unlike, e.g., бидон
ijlj-j /bidon/ ‘know!’, where the first syllable is stressed, as befits an
Imperative (3.29), but canonically short, to retain its identity as that
particular prefix. Similarly, мушак .<-4.j_a /mutsak/ ‘rocket, missile’
(a diminutive of mui ‘mouse, rat’) contrasts, by virtue of the lexical
stem, with мушир j» /musr.r/ or /musi:r/ ‘counselor’ (an un-
analyzable Arabic participle). These contexts where /i/ and /и/ remain
stable despite falling in an unstressed open syllable correspond, of
course, to syllables where they are written with and j in Perso-Arabic
script, in accordance with morphology and etymology.
1 See, for Persian, Lazard 1957/ 1992, § 7; for Tajik, Rastorgueva 1953, pp. 67-
68/ 1963, p. 4. For a dissenting view, see Mirzozoda 1994.
PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY
17
This ambiguity of /i/ and /и/ is resolved in speech. The contrast in
quality is not as distinct as the corresponding contrasts in Standard
Persian, but in general “long” /i/ and /и/ in stable position or stable-
equivalent context are perceived in Tajik as being higher, and tense, in
comparison with the unstable or “short,” generally lax, vowels—if not
always longer in terms of milliseconds.
The oversimplification implicit in the ostensibly phonemic Cyrillic
writing system thus causes some confusion. In several (Cyrillic) homo-
graphs, this same contrast, of length in the older system, is shown in
the Perso-Arabic orthography, though not in the Cyrillic: пул jl /pul/
‘bridge’ vs. пул /ри:1/ ‘money’ (similar to Eng. pull and pool):,
бино LLj /bind/ ‘building, basis’ vs. бино Сш /bi:no/ ‘sighted, able
to see’; cf. [US] Eng. to debark (a ship), vs. to de-bark (a dog). It is
also responsible for some common spelling errors in Cyrillic (see 1.12).
The single concession made to this contrast in Cyrillic is between
word-final short, unstressed /i/ and long, stressed /i:Z (cf. Eng. trusty
and trustee). Since in (Tajik) Persian this contrast is grammatically
significant, it is shown by means of a diacritic macron over the character:
и/ fi(see 1.12).
An unintended consequence of the dropping of vowel length as a
feature of the written language was the obscuring of the traditional
prosody (aruz jj—c), which determines long and short syllables in
traditional verse. Poets of the second and later generations of MLT
(such as Mirzo Tursunzoda), who had not learned to read Perso-Arabic
script, unwittingly composed verses that do not scan, and rhymes (such
as чогир j-^Ьх /jogi:r/ with хозир j^La. /hozir/) that do not work.
1.3	Vowels (2): Individual Qualities
The central and back vowels are rounded.
/и/ (orthographically у j - ; unstable) is close to the cardinal vowel
and Eng. pull or pool (cf. 1.1; and see Lowering, below). Long
and short vowels, or unstressed open syllables (where the vowel is
reduced in length and quality), can be distinguished by the Perso-
Arabic spelling, but not by the Cyrillic: буд /bu:d/ ‘was’,
шуд dLi /sud/ ‘became’; хунин j_A/xu:nm/ ‘bloody’, чунин
18
CHAPTER ONE
(^л1а./ёэшп/ ‘such’; муздур jjjJ-o /muzduir/ (<muzd-var) ‘wage-
"	я я
earner ,шутур /sutilr/ ‘camel’, сутур jj" r., /s^ilr/ ‘draught
or riding animal’.
/й/ (y j 2; stable), lies phonetically between [u] and [y], i.e. halfway
to the Umlaut, a little lower than Eng. good as pronounced in
lowland Scottish (imitated spelling, guid), but higher than French
peu. It is less rounded and more lax than /и/. This vowel is phonemic
only in Northern dialects; in Central and Southern speech it is
generally replaced by (stable) /и/ (see also 1.11): кух,на <t_l^____£
/kuhna/ or /kuhna/ ‘old’ (see also Lowering, below).
/о/ (о, alif in Perso-Arabic; stable) is lower (more open) than Russian
o, somewhat as in Eng. awful, and uniform in quality throughout
its length, without either the u- onset of Russian or the -w offglide
of English in some environments. It is the most stable vowel,
prosodically long, but of consistent and unique quality in any
environment, so that length is irrelevant as a distinctive feature
(unlike the other two stable vowels). It may be nasalized before
syllable-final /п/: он до I y'Aonjo /ojo/ ‘there’. In some Southern
dialects it may be less rounded and closer to SP /а/ [a], to which it
corresponds historically: обод jUI /obod/.../abad/ ‘fertile, pros-
perous, inhabited’.
The fact that this sound approximates Russian о more closely
than it does any other Russian vowel, and is thus transcribed by о
to and from Cyrillic, has three unfortunate consequences. It obscures
the historical affinity between /о/ as a and (unstable) /а/ (they
were prosodic pairs, /а/ and /a:/, as were CP /i/ and /i:/, /и/ and
/и:/—see 1.8); it disguises the morphological identity of Tajik
words with cognates in other varieties of Persian, e.g., boridan ‘to
rain’ with SP baridan jj-jjL (not boridan *to cut’); and it
prompts flagrant mispronunciation by non-Russian speakers
learning Tajik. There is a prime analogy on all three counts with
the 19th-century transcription of Indo-Persian short a (which is
more close than in Persian) by English и (then pronounced [л] as
in but or cup), which duly generated oddities like cummerbund for
/kamarband/ > ' -j *< ‘waist sash’ and Punjab for /panjab/ J
(though without having these replace the Perso-Arabic represent-
PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY
19
ation for Indians).
The front vowels form a more regular pattern in sound and transcription.
Care should be taken not to confuse the values, or transcriptions, of /i/
and /е/ with their SP counterparts, which are in effect reversed; thus
the pen-name of the Indo-Persian poet бедил /be:dfl/ (‘heartless’),
as he is known in Central and South Asia, is pronounced by Iranians
more like /bi.'del/.
I'll (и, й , unstable) is close to the cardinal vowel and to the Eng.
vowels in fit (when in unstressed position) and/eet (when stressed,
or word-final; for this orthography see 1.11; see also 1.4, Lowering).
The vowel III tends toward lower and more open articulation after
velar consonants, as in ZqiSloq/ ‘village’ or /xirs/ ‘bear’, and before
/h/ or the glottal stop in a closed syllable it is lowered to /e/; this is
reflected in the Cyrillic spelling (1.11). As an unstable vowel, it is
reduced in length in an unstressed open syllable; but as with /и/, a
historically long /i:/ in such a syllable is not so reduced, and can
be distinguished only in the Perso-Arabic script: сир j___________/sir/
‘secret’, сир j..a ^./si:r/ ‘garlic’; шинос /Si nos/ or /S'nos/
‘acquainted’, Широз JI j /§i:roz/ ‘Shiraz’.
/е/ (e, э stable) is a mid front vowel, slightly lower than [e]; it
occurs frequently as the Indefinite/ Specific enclitic -e LS- in an
unstressed word ending: pox,e /rohe/ ‘a road’, хонае
^1 «QlS. /хопае/ ‘a house’ (2.7-9). As a stable vowel, it retains its
quality in any phonetic environment: cep j., -и/ser/ ‘sated’, сероб
<_>T^-u^/serob/ ‘juicy’, безеб —/bezeb/ ‘plain, unattractive’.
For Cyrillic e as /уе/ in Tajik, and э as lei, see 1.12.
/а/ (a 6- _ , unstable), close to the low front cardinal vowel; it may
be heard as a more central vowel after a uvular consonant, e.g., in
к,анд j 'i a /qand/ ‘lump sugar’, or slightly higher after /у/, as in
яла /yala/ ‘open’. In an unstressed open syllable, it may be
reduced to schwa /э/: сафед j a /s’fed/ ‘white’ (see above,
1.2). Before a glottal stop or a suppressed Ihl, it assimilates as a
prolongation, and in Southern dialects may additionally shift to
lol: баъд /bo:d/ ‘after’ (see 1.11). This prolongation or shift
of lai is allophonic, not phonemic, and unlike long /u:/ or /i:/ does
not correspond to a prosodic partner (which in the case of lai was
20
CHAPTER ONE
/a:/, represented by alifi see above).
1.4	Vowels (3): Lowering, Glides, Diphthongs
The articulation of unstable vowels may vary casually in different
phonetic environments, or from speaker to speaker. In the following
two cases there is a systematic lowering of the vowel, which is reflected
in the Cyrillic spelling.
/i/ > /e/: The vowel /i/ is lowered to /е/ before /h/ or the glottal stop in
a closed or word-final syllable: дех, oj ‘give!’ (Imper. sg.; contrast
дихед j j ‘give!’, Imper. pl., open syllable; cf. нех, «Ci /neh/
and нихед j । о \ /nihed/ ‘put!’, Fig. З.За-с); Фотех, qSLs /foteh/
(man’s name), but фотиха < ^"l__а/fotiha/ ‘opening surah of the
Koran’; тасхех	‘correction (of copy), proofing’, but
тасхихот .-.I » ‘corrections’.2This shift is commonly seen
in Arabic loanwords of particular morpholexical patterns: истехсол
JI -v ...I /istehsol/ ‘production’; эътироз ^1 j-ixl /e’tiroz/ or
/eitiroz/ ‘objection’ (contrast, e.g., истилох	/istiloh/
‘idiom, term’); монеъ _________a /mone’/ ‘hindering’—and, excep-
tionally, its derivatives монеа /monea/ ‘barrier’ and моней
^^ji-SLo /monel/ ‘hindrance, obstacle’, despite the open syllable, in
which the consonant ’ayn is realized as a glide between vowels
and hence not written in Cyrillic (see 1.5; cf., however, the Cyrillic
spelling of фодиа <и*_=.1_Ь /fojia/ ‘tragedy’ and its derivatives, also
a case of 'ayn in an open syllable).3
Non-systematic lowering of both /i/ and /i:/ is encountered in
some common (orformerly common) words, e.g. _,ljl /ezor/ ‘waist-
wrapper, drawers’ (< Ar. izar, also spelled jlj-J in Tajik); jL^-J
/ejod/ ‘creation, production’ < Ar. ijad (cf. 1.14). For j_____□__a
‘heritage’, both /meros/ and the canonical /miros/ are recorded
(Cyr. мерос, мирос).
/и/ > /fi/: Similarly, /и/ is lowered to /й/ (Cyrillic orthography, y) in
the same environment: ухда /iihda/ or /fi:da/ ‘responsibility’,
f	-- r
шуъла <i I. л /gfirla/ ‘flame’; мухтарам ^1 j	—о /miihtaram/
2 Тасхехот in Raximi & Uspenskaia 1954 stands in need of correction.
3 Maniyozov & Mirzoev 1991.
PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY
21
‘respected’ (contrast, e.g., мустадил Jl T m a /mustaqfl/ ‘inde-
pendent’). By the nature of Tajik phonotactics, it is predominantly
Arabic loanwords that trigger this shift (but cf. Persian instances
such as кух,на < /kuhna/ or /ku:na/ ‘old’).
A small number of Arabic past participles of the pattern maful
(and their derivatives) have й as the second vowel, even when the
following consonant is other than /7: маъруза	/ma’ruza/
‘presentation, lecture’, малул Jj-Lo /maliil/ ‘tired, despondent’,
etc., though the majority have и: маъруф jj -___________& /ma’ruf/
‘familiar’, мадбур । ?________a ‘forced’, etc. Such non-systematic
lowering, whether of /и/ or /i/, may occur in closed or open syllables.
Since /й! is distinguished phonemically from /и/ only in the
Northern dialects, this shift is a literary convention which, though
maintained in standard orthography, may not be heard in Southern
Tajik speech.
Glides. Tajik morphology, both inflectional and derivational, includes
a number of suffixes and enclitics beginning with vowels. Except where
a consonant is inserted (see 1.8), the interface between a vowel-final
word and an affix beginning with a different vowel is heard as a glide,
i.e., a smooth transition from the first vowel to the second, with the
respective accents and qualities remaining essentially intact: /хопае/ ‘a
house’ /johoe/ ‘places’, /raftaand/ ‘they have gone’. In the last case,
where the vowels are both /а/, the duality will usually be marked not
by a hiatus but by a “step down” from the generally higher tone of the
stressed stem vowel to the lower one of the unstressed enclitic.
In the transition either to or from the vowel /i/, the glide is normally
heard as a light articulation of the related semi-vowel /у/: хона-и ту
LlLk /xonayi tu/ ‘your house’; пох,о-и ман ^LaL /pohoyi man/
‘my feet’; дусти-и мо Lo Ц~1jj/dustfi mo/ ‘our friendship’; дусти-
ашон J Lil ~ — jj/dustPa§on/ ‘their friendship’. This is appropriate-
ly represented orthographically by the quasi-yotated Russian vowel и
and, usually, the Perso-Arabic semi-consonant^(1.11, 1.13).
In other combinations of identical vowels, or of front and back
vowels, the transition usually involves insertion of one of the semi-vowels
/у/ or /v~w/. In both cases the transition (which may allow a choice
between the semi-vowels) is incorporated, and often standardized, in
22
CHAPTER ONE
the orthography, and is best treated as an ad hoc variant of particular
affixes: e.g., дуюм/ дуйум /duydm/ or дуввум jj /duvvum/
‘second’ (2.52); сию як /siyu yak/ or сиву як /sivu yak/ j
‘thirty-one’ (4.11).
Diphthongs. Diphthongs are usually transparent couplings of vowel
and glide, and are treated in both the Cyrillic and Perso-Arabic
orthographies as a vowel preceding or following the (semi-)consonants
v ~ w or y. Notable in literary Tajik is the preservation of the word-final
sequences /оу/ and /йу/ in a number of common nouns and verb stems,
e.g., /роу/ ‘foot, leg’, /гйу/ ‘face’ (in SP this final у has been dropped;
it is absent in much spoken Tajik, and in most cases optional in written
Tajik). Word-final /ow/ may be heard as an allomorph of /ov/ (bilabial
or labio-dental v; see /v/ under Consonants, 1.5).
In the case of the vowel /а/ there is no appreciable change in
quality (unlike the disputed SP diphthongs): /vay/ ‘he, she’, /хауг/
‘well’, /ayvon/ ‘porch’; /raw/ (orthographically, rav) ‘go’, /qawm/
(qavm) ‘clan’, /dawlat/ (davlaf) ‘state’. The diphthong /aw/ is an
allophone of the sequence /av/ (see Ivl under Consonants, 1.5). These
are the only two regularly-occurring “rising” diphthongs in Tajik.
“Falling” diphthongs beginning with the bilabial semi-vowel /w/ do
not occur in the standard language, in which this is only an allophone
of /v/: /ovoz/ ‘voice, song’ may be heard as /owoz/ (cf. 1.5), but in
/ovez/ ‘hang’ and most other environments /v/ functions as a consonant.
Consonant /у/ may regularly precede any vowel, as in English;
these sequences are written with four separate characters and three
other digraphs in Cyrillic, but this is merely the result of the Russian
specific nature of the orthography and represents no peculiarity of
Tajik (see 1.11).
1.5	Consonants
The Tajik consonant inventory consists of twenty-four phonemes,
distributed as in Fig. 1.5. The same characters will be used in both
phonemic transcription, between slant lines, and transliteration, in italics
(v~w is given as v and /v/ only) Phonetic symbols in Fig. 1.5 are
provided for clarification where this transcription is other than standard.
PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY
23
The palatals /6/ and /j/ are phonetically affricates (as in Eng church
and George).
Voiceless stops /р/, /t/, /к/ are slightly aspirated initially (as in English).
Voiced stops /Ь/, /d/, /g/ tend to be devoiced finally in some dialects.
Fig. 1.5 Consonants
	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Stops	P	t	C	к	q	
	b	d	j [<H	g		’ И
Nasals	m	n				
Fricatives	f	s	§	X	h	
	v~w	z	1	g [y]		
Resonants		1, r	у Lil			
Final /р/ in the word asp ‘horse’ and a few Iranian names originating
in compounds with this (Tahmasp, Gustasp) is not aspirated, and
in CP and SP is usually written with b\  ,  ..I; in Tajik these are
generally written with/?: ...I,
/Ь/ is devoiced before a voiceless consonant: ибтидо I .u-~i.il /iptido/
‘beginning’, хубтар	/xuptar/ ‘better’.
/d/ is devoiced before a voiceless consonant: бадтар /battar/
‘worse’, and may be devoiced intervocalically: медихам
mediham	‘I give’.
/q/ is similar to the sound represented by the letter qof in Arabic and
the Turkic languages of Central Asia. The velar fricative /g/ is
strongly articulated, like the sound of Arabic gayn or the French r
grasseye. These sounds are two quite distinct phonemes in Tajik
(and Persian of Afghanistan; unlike in SP, where they form a
single phoneme).
/п/ is assimilated to a following labial as /m/, though the orthogra-
phy takes no note of it: шанбе 4_1_1_Д /Sambe/ ‘Saturday’, синф
. » /simf/ ‘class’. Conversely, /т/ may be assimilated to /п/
before an alveolar: /andivol/ ‘neighbor’ (dial., ham-divor, with
/r/>/l/).
24
CHAPTER ONE
/7 the glottal stop (orthographically, the Russian hard sign ъ, in Taj.
alomati sakta-, Perso-Arabic <= hamza or £ ’ayn) is heard automat-
ically with any abrupt vowel onset. It occurs also in the articulation
of Arabic loanwords containing ’ayn or hamza in certain environ-
ments (orthography, 1.10, 1.12,1.13).
After a consonant (including word-finally, in izofat) it is heard
as a slight hiatus: анъана ч '>«'i г /ап’апа/ ‘tradition’, ду ч,амъ-и
ду jj р-п у jj /du jam’i du/ ‘two plus two’. Before a consonant it
may be heard in careful or educated pronunciation as a slight
hiatus, followed by a short continuation of the same vowel: маъно
/таапб/ ‘meaning’, неъмат cl ид.* ~i Zneemat/ ‘bounty’. In this
environment, however, ’ayn and hamza are more usually realized
in casual speech as a prolongation of the vowel, and between
vowels as a glide; таълиф  »_4i~ /tailfif/ ‘composition, authorship’,
шуъла ч I»/su:la/ ‘flame’. In Southern dialects, the quality of a
preceding /а/ may also shift back: баъд jjL_>/bo:d/ or /ba:d/ ‘after’
(cf. /h/, below; and see Vowels, 1.2).
/h/ tends to be dropped in all positions, particularly in southern dialects:
/andivol/ ‘neighbor’ (ham-divor, cf. assimilation of /m/, above);
мох,ру _____________о /то.тй/ ‘female name’; пошшо I—liU /poSSo/
‘monarch; part of name’ (<pod-soh, with additional assimilation
of /d/). The frequently-occurring plural morpheme -ho is usually
heard, after a consonant, as (stressed) /о/: шахрх,о Laj-e-i /Sa:r6/
‘cities’. Before a consonant, /h/ may be replaced by a lengthening
of the preceding vowel, without change of quality (cf. glottal stop,
above): эхтимол JI n T - J /e:timol/ ‘probably’.
/г/ may be dropped in some dialects before /d/ in a few common
words, esp. in the past stem of the common auxiliary kardan, as
кардам /kadum/ ‘I did’, etc.
/х/ is a strong fricative, pronounced farther back than its Russian
counterpart, closer to the sound heard in Scottish loch or German
Bach. It may occur in any position, including initially: хуб
/xu:b/ ‘good’.
/v/ is labiodental initially and between vowels: варак, jjj /varaq/
‘page’, бева оj  /beva/ ‘widow’; but in final position, between
rounded vowels, and preconsonantally after /а/ it tends to be realized
PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY
25
as bilabial /w/: гов jl_S/gow/‘cow’, овоз jljT/owoz/‘voice’,
савол JI j_bu/sawol/ ‘question’, гувох, о I /guwoh/ ‘witness’,
к,авл Jj 2 /qawl/ ‘word, promise’; пайрав jj _< _t /payraw/
‘following, subordinate’, ЬШпайравй jj—/payravi/ ‘adher-
ence, subordination’.
PzJ is of limited distribution, occurring in a few Persian words such as
жола <Ulj ‘hail(stones)’, мижа _______________a /miza/ ‘eyelash’, and in
Russian loans; in colloquial Tajik it is often replaced by /j/: инженер
/injenyer/ ‘engineer’.
/у/ is an unremarkable consonant (or semivowel, since it is articulated
in the same position as the vowel III). It occurs in syllable-initial
and final positions, and is written with only one character in Perso-
Arabic (see also 1.4, Glides, Diphthongs; 1.8, Terminal y). But in
the Russian-specific Cyrillic orthography of Tajik, /у/ has to be
written in seven different ways (1.12).
MORPHOPHONOLOGY
1.6	Syllables and Stress
Under the heading of Morphophonology are treated variations in sounds
and sound patterns that occur in conjunction with particular forms of
words (see also Lowering, Glides, and Diphthongs, 1.4). The following
three sections describe Syllable structure and stress; Phonotactics; and
Morphophonemic alternation and suppletion.
Syllable structure is predictable and has followed the same historical
development as in Persian: CV, CVC, CVCC. (These patterns include
the three with a vowel onset, the latter counting as the glottal stop.)
Thus in any sequence the consonant immediately preceding a vowel
begins a new syllable; initial consonant clusters, and syllable-final
clusters of more than two consonants, are not tolerated (see 1.7).
In cases where a native phrase or compound creates a triple consonant
cluster across a word or morpheme boundary (e.g., CVCC-CVC), the
prosodic (literary) solution is to insert a prothetic /а/ before the third
consonant of the cluster: nard-bon ‘ladder’ is read as a trisyllable,
26
CHAPTER ONE
/nardabon/. In colloquial usage, however, the middle consonant tends
to be suppressed: nardbon> /no:rbon/ (with compensatory lengthening
and quality change in the preceding vowel; cf Zbo:d/, 1.5 under /’/);
similarly, шаст-сола <J .^^.-4. sast-sola /Sassola/ ‘sixty-year-old’;
баланд-тар л'>1  baland-tar /balantar/ ‘taller’.
Stops following continuants are not strongly articulated, and may
be suppressed finally in common words: хафт haft /haf/ ‘seven’,
хашт p a hast /has/ ‘eight’. They are restored before a following
vowel: /haftod/ ‘seventeen’ (but хафт нафар _________LS haft nafar
/hafnafar/ ‘seven people’, хаштсад л T Л, a hastsad /haSsad/ ‘eight
hundred’).
Stress. Tajik words shows a predictable stress, which may be perceived
as more forceful articulation, or higher pitch, or a combination of
these. Stress is word final in nominals (inc. Infinitives, participles),
and progresses to include plural and derivational suffixes: kitdb ‘book’,
kitobho ‘books’, kitobi ‘literary, bookish’.
Enclitics are not stressed: kitobe ‘a book’, kitobhde ‘(some) books’;
kitobro ‘the book’, kitobhdro ‘the books’, kitobhdero ‘some books’
(obj.; 2.17); kitoobas, kitob-i vay ‘his book’, kitobhoyamon, kitobho-i
mo ‘our books’; raftan ‘to go, going, departure’, raftanaton ‘your
departure’; rafta ‘gone’, raftagdn ‘the departed (ones)’. Monosyllabic
function words such as complementizer &/, emphatic ham, interrogative
-ml (which are often enclitics, prosodically, if not orthographically)
carry no stress in comparison with adjacent syllables.
Transparent compounds may exhibit one or more secondary accents:
kambagal ‘poor (person)’ (kam ‘little’ + bagal ‘armful’), /notavonbimi:/
‘envy’ (no-tavdn ‘not able’ + bim ‘seeing’); bargardonda ‘returned,
given back’ (preverb bar + causative participle gard-ond-a).
A nominal used as a vocative generally takes initial stress: padar!
‘father!’ (2.26). Conjunctions formed in combination with the comple-
mentizer ки ki take penultimate stress: koski ‘if only’. A number of
common adverbials and interjections (mostly ending in a vowel) have
initial or penultimate stress: bale, ore ‘yes’, ammo, lekin ‘but’, balki
‘but (rather)’, xele ‘very, a lot’, ammo, vale ‘but’, ya’ne (/ya:ne/or
/yaane/) ‘i.e., I mean’, oyo (interrog.; see 4.8), caro ‘why?’, zero
‘because’, holo, hole ‘now’, hatto ‘even’, albatta ‘of course’, kam
PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY	27
‘well, then’, obbo ‘oh dear’. All these cases will be noted as they
occur.
Russian nominals, in which stress is unpredictable, and Russian-
mediated “international” vocabulary, are supposed to be pronounced
as in Russian even when used as loanwords in Tajik: radio ‘radio’,
atomho ‘atoms’. It is difficult to keep two incompatible stress-systems
going in fluent or rapid speech, and this rule was frequently broken; it
is no longer regarded as binding. When combined with Tajik morphology,
Russian vocabulary is subject to Tajik stress rules: atomi ‘atomic’
(adj.; contrast Rus. атомный).
Stress in verb forms is basically regressive, i.e., the first syllable of
a finite, conjugated form carries the stress: gufted ‘you said’, omadem
‘we came; here we are’; though a heavier final syllable in polysyllabic
stems, i.e., one with a long vowel or a final consonant cluster, will
assume primaiy stress if there are no prefixes: guzast-and ‘they passed’.
Prefixes bi-, me-, na- are always stressed; if more than one occurs, the
first (the negative na-) is stressed: mexonad ‘she’s reading’, nameravam
‘I won’t go’. Prefixed forms may have secondary stress—finite forms
on the final syllable: bi-gired ‘take!’, ndme-ovardand ‘they did not
bring’, and participles (which are stressed as nominals) on the prefix:
meomadagi. ‘coming, on the way’ (3.46). The personal endings do not
take primary stress; nor do the personal enclitics of the verb ‘to be’,
either as copulas or tense auxiliaries: korgar-and ‘they are workers’
(3.6), rafta-ast ‘he has gone’.
Intonation. Stress and pitch patterns in Tajik phrases and sentences
are naturally capable of considerable variation, especially in longer
speech strings. In general, short declarative statements rise on the next
stressed syllable, hold even or rise one more step, then drop on the
final (generally unstressed) syllable to a step just below that of the
initial syllable: cf. Fig. 1.6a (a simple intransitive sentence, meaning
‘spring is over’) and Fig. 1.6b (a simple transitive sentence, meaning
‘Grandfather has a grandfather’). Complex sentences will in general
follow the same pattern, holding or repeating the tone of the penultimate
syllable in place of the low terminal tone in all but the final syllable of
the string.
28
CHAPTER ONE
Fig. 1.6 Statement Intonation Profiles
4 3	— — 2	— 1 —	4	— 3	_ _	_ 2	— 1 —
(a) bahor guzast	(b) bobo bobo dorad
1.7	Phonotactics.
Since initial consonant clusters are not tolerated in New Persian (1.6,
Syllable structure), earlier words, including loans, of an aberrant structure
were usually assimilated by the insertion of an epenthetic vowel (between
the consonants): сипих.р j p _  ./sipihr/ ‘sphere’ (< Greek sphaira),
and later borrowings with a prothetic (initial) vowel: истакон jl<-, ...I
/istakon/ ‘tea-glass’ (< Rus stakari).
Russian borrowings in particular have added alien initial clusters to
the corpus, such as zvend ‘team, unit’, Stalin-obod (former name of
Dushanbe). Such loanwords were at first assimilated to Tajik phonotactic
norms, as in istakon above; in 1954, however, it was decreed that
Russian and “international” vocabulaiy incorporated in the Cyrillicized
languages was to be written exactly as in Russian, and most earlier
loans were re-Russianized. This control did not necessarily extend to
the spoken word; the degree to which Tajik speakers assimilated (and
still assimilate) Russian words to native phonotactic and phonetic norms
(e.g., /zvyeno/ > /z’veno/, /stalinobod/ > /istalinobod/) depends partly
on non-linguistic factors such as their level of education or cultural
predilections (cf. also Stress, 1.6).
(Tajik) Persian allows a range of word-final two-consonant clusters,
with some restrictions. Continuants (inc. resonants and fricatives) may
combine fairly freely: -ft, -xs, -rf, -rs, -rz, -rx, -rj, -lx, -nj are among
the most common combinations. However, resonants and nasals come
first in combination and stops occur as the final consonant only when
preceded by a continuant, in the combinations -st, -st, -sk, -ft, -xt, -rd,
-rg, -lx, -nd, -ng, -mb, -sp. The influx of Arabic vocabulary from at
least the tenth century introduced a large number of final consonant
clusters which contravened Persian phonotactics: e.g.  .Uo qutb ‘pole’,
PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY
29
j—a—о majd ‘glory’, jXLi sukr ‘thanks’. In many Arabic or Persian
collocations these can be redistributed between syllables, e.g., sukr-ulloh
/Sukrullo/ ‘thank God’; as final clusters, they have been “domesticated”
(and native clusters further simplified) by one of three strategies:
(1)	Separation by means of an epenthetic vowel: sukr /§uk“r/ ‘thanks’,
atr /atr/ ‘perfume’; сатил J_. ~ ... \J~ ...‘bucket pail’ (Ar. ,jV...
satl) is one of the few such alterations to have been formalized in
written Tajik (both Cyrillic and Perso-Arabic).
(2)	Changing a stop to the closest continuant, most commonly /q/ >
/x/: tXjJsj vaqt /vaxt/ ‘time’, j ° ~ taqsir /tax sir/ ‘fault’, <i л,
naqsa /naxsa/ ‘design, plan’; the result is to simulate a permissible
Persian cluster (-xt, -xs, -xs). Occasionally a continuant is changed
to a related obstruent: haft-dah, hafdah (as written in Perso-Arabic,
л j_La) > /havda/ > /habda/ (so written, with morphographic restor-
ation of h, in Cyrillic: хабдах) ‘seventeen’.
(3)	Metathesis, i.e., switching the sequence of components of the
cluster: куфл Ji—5 qufl> /qulf/ ‘lock, bolt’; китф . «" < kitf >
/kift/ ‘shoulder’ (both accepted in Cyrillic). This sometimes achieves
a canonical native cluster, as in these two examples. In other cases
(even in native words) it imitates more familiar sequences or
patterns: афв j—a—c afv > /avf/ ‘pardon’; х,алво Ij I -> halvo >
/havlo/ ‘halva’; сурфа surfa> /sufra/ ‘cough’; tafsidan >
/taspidan/ ‘to glow’ (these instances are not accepted in the written
language).
1.8 Alternation and Suppletion
In the context of certain forms or categories of words, a phoneme may
be inserted where it is otherwise absent in cognate forms. The following
examples are regularly found in written Tajik.
-a /-ag-.	\ ь-. There is a switch between word-final -a and
prevocalic -ag- before the stressed suffixes -on (human pl., 2.4), -i
(noun formative, 5.2; adj. formative, 5.4) and -ona (adj. and adv.
formative, 5.4): baca ‘child’, bacagon ‘children’, bacagi ‘child-
hood’, bacagona ‘childish, children’s’; karda and kardagi ‘done’
(Past participles I and II, 3.43). This historical echo recapitulates
30
CHAPTER ONE
the morphological sequence of Middle Persian, when this class of
nouns ended in -ag, and regularly accepted vowel-initial suffixes;
the terminal velar was subsequently lost, but evidently still underlies
the stem form. This Zg/ is now intuited as euphonic, and is sometimes
supplied even for words in -a of non-Persian origin: Ar. <i H'k
talaba ‘student’ (actually a pl. in Arabic, of u-JLL), Tajik pl.
talabagon (also written <uJ_L; cf. 1.15, 3.44-46).
Terminal y. Tajik preserves, often optionally, the terminal у found on
a number of nominals and verb Stems I in CP (but no longer in
SP) after “long” vowels /о/ and liil: пой (_$(_> poy ‘foot, leg’, 40Й
joy ‘place’, сой- --jL^soy- ‘rub’ (Stem I sudariy руй
ruy ‘face’, муй тйу ‘hair’, чуй (_sj_jiiy ‘stream, canal’;
ЧУЙ—_jj-----------a. jiiy ‘seek’- (Stem I justan), and the compound
донишчу(й) ((_s)j > ‘student’ (donis ‘knowledge’ + Stem I
justan). In many cases this у may be dropped when the word is
end-stopped (in jo ‘this place, here’; bigii ‘say!’; donisju ‘student’,
a modem borrowing from SP). However, when the word is followed
by an enclitic or suffix (inflectional or derivational), the у in most
cases resurfaces: ба чои шумо I а л. ^-1	 ba jo-i sumo /ba joyi
5umo/‘in your place, instead of you’, чойхоб <_il ^La. ‘bed’,
гуед /giiyed/ ‘say!’ (pl.)—even if disguised by the Cyrillic
orthography (see 1.11).
Intrusive n. In a number of Tajik nominals and one formative, a vowel
is followed by n where no n is recorded lexically for CP or SP
cognates. Since this occurs either word-finally or before g, the
process seems to be one of nasalization of the vowel. Examples
where this appears in the orthography include: долин j_JL3‘rug’
(SPqali (jJI—5), кошин ^,1 5‘tile’ (SP kasi л.1 <) лунча
<L_a^ijJ lunca ‘jowl’ (SP luce <^-j-l), гуштин(-гирй) т Л
(lSj j ‘wrestling’ (SPkusti(giri), бозингар	‘player;
playful’ (SP bazigary, динангй	o < 'i \ dinangl
‘yesterday’s’ (see 5.4; considered a variant of the formative -гй -
сЛ-£*)•
Reduplicated r. Double consonants are rare in (Tajik) Persian, except
across morpheme boundaries (ham-millat ZhammillatZ ‘of the same
nationality’, dar-rav ZdarrawZ ‘at once’). The one word often written
PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY
31
with tasdid over c does not in fact contain a geminate: the spelling
is said to be a device to distinguish <t	baca ‘child, boy’
from «1__ba-ci ‘to what’. Baca is properly pronounced with a
single c, though as an affricate it may take longer to articulate
than a simplex consonant. Medial m is sometimes doubled: umed
drummed (often in poetry) ‘hope’; and geminate r occurs regularly
in a few words: arra ‘(hand)saw’, farrux ‘happy’.
The consonant r is also doubled in some occurrences of a
morph, but not others—before a vowel-initial suffix, in some
nominals and monosyllabic verb Stems I ending in -r. This may
occur in conjugated forms of both the simple verb and its causative
derivative (all forms of the latter), or the Present participle {-anda,
3.41), verbal adjective and adverb (-o, -on, 3.39), and/ or verbal
noun {-is, 3.38, 5.2). Affected are the verbsparidan ‘to fly’, buridan
‘to cut’, daridan ‘to tear’, caridan ‘to graze’. The common verb
xaridan ‘to buy’ is not affected. (In the case of buridan, at least,
this feature occurs in CP.) There is little or no consistency in the
forms affected, or their orthographic record (i.e., in Cyrillic; the
Perso-Arabic diacritic for reduplication, tasdid, is rarely used; see
1.13).
Examples: заррин zarrin ‘gold(en)’, Заррина
(female name, < zar ‘gold’); парранда (паранда) >
par(r)anda ‘bird’ (lit. ‘flying [one]’), паррон jjI ‘flyng, swift’,
парронча ? ‘.^/‘fledgling’ (diminutive -ca, 5.2), паррондан
‘to launch, hurl, fly (tr.)’ (but париш ‘flight’);
мебуррад/ мебурад jj—о mebu(r)rad ‘he cuts’, буриш
(бурриш) jij-i bur(r)is ‘cut(ting), section’, бурро Ij_i ‘sharp,
trenchant’ (but бурида ‘cut [off)]’); медаррад
medarrad ‘he tears’, дарранда jj ‘predator(y), beast/ bird of
prey’, даррондан	‘to tear to pieces, devour’ (5.15);
чарранда ‘grazing animal, [pl.] livestock’ (but чарогох,
‘pasture’).
Arabic geminates. A number of monosyllabic Arabic loanwords which
terminate in a doubled consonant lose one of the consonants in
Tajik when the word is end-stopped or followed by a consonant:
дин ‘jinn, jinnee’, ч,инх,о jinho ‘jinnees, genies’; саф
32
CHAPTER ONE
> set/‘line of battle’, сафдар jj a safdar ‘breaker of [ene-
my] ranks, valiant’. However, the extra consonant resurfaces before
a vowel-initial suffix or enclitic (most commonly, the izofat}. диннй
jinni ‘crazy, possessed’; саффи душман J " *,» saff-i
dusman ‘the enemy’s ranks’. This alternation is always recorded
in Cyrillic, and optionally in Perso-Arabic (seetasdid, 1.13).
Exceptionally, the geminate form дины is also found, perhaps
in contradistinction to its homonym, the modem loanword дин jin
‘(cotton) gin’. The wordxnc(c) ‘feeling, sense’, too, is often
found in geminate form.
Other common examples are as follows (given in Perso-Arabic
script only where they contain non-default characters; see 1.13):
dur /dur/ ‘pearl’, durri noyob /durri noyob/ ‘rare pearl’; kul ‘all,
whole’, kulli mardum ‘all the people’; sir ‘(the) secret’, sirre ‘a
secret’;xctr KA‘line; writing’,xatti arabiL < ‘Arabic script’;
hab ‘pill, tablet’, habbi sulfa <_____s I .... cough tablet’; had
дл. ‘limit, boundary’, haddi aksar j "<! ‘maximum’; haq
‘truth, right’, dar haqqi--3^. jj ‘concerning’; hal ‘solution’,
, Ci	halkunii патак ‘dissolving salt, salt solution’, but
<3! <lLj—uj—о halli mas’alae ‘a solution to the problem’',fan
‘technique, science’, fanrii ‘scientific’, etc. Geminates are
represented in Cyrillic, and optionally (with tasdid, see 1.12) in
Perso-Arabic. It is not incorrect to write tasdid over a singular or
pre-consonantal form: <_.LlS jj /	, etc.
A few such loanwords are assimilated to the extent that they
have lost gemination entirely: kafi dost ‘palm (of the hand)’, kafi
po ‘sole (of the foot)’. The word к,ад j___2 ‘size, stature, height,
length’ vacillates: qaddi raso! qadi raso ‘full size’, qad-u bar
‘length and width’; in its use as a prepositional phrase it generally
has a single /d/: qad(d)i kwta ‘along the street’ (2.21).
In a particular idiom, the Persian noun худ j‘self’ (2.32),
which does not end in a geminate, often has a reduplicated /d/
before izofaf. худди ту барин /xuddi tu barin/ ‘just like you’
(‘like you yourself’; see barin, 2.23).
Prosodic pairs. In accordance with the older system of vowel opposition
in Persian (1.2), the five long vowels were paired with three short
PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY
33
vowels, a : a, He : i, й/б : и for purposes of contrasting long and
short syllables in poetry. By poetic license, a short vowel might
be substituted for its (canonical) long equivalent in some frequently-
occurring words. The last two contrasts provide only ad hoc prosodic
variants in verse, and cannot always be represented in Cyrillic,
since it does not distinguish long and short vowels; e.g., пёкб :
niko (in Tajik, неку \ : наку '.) ‘good’; bud : bud : jjj
(л_>, both буд in Cyrillic).
However, a for d is still to be found in lexical forms such as
names and compounds: рахдор jlaA j rah-dor ‘striped, streaky’
(‘having stripe(s)’ < roh ‘road, stripe’); a half-dozen other com-
pounds have roh- by preference, rah- as variant, e.g., rohbar/
rahbar ‘leader’, rohzan/ rahzan ‘highway robber’; mahtob
‘moonlight’, mahtobi ‘moonlit’ (< moh ‘moon’ + Stem I toftan ‘to
shine’); sahnoy ‘wind instrument’ (<soh ‘king’; an augmentive,
5.6; for noy, see next).
The variation even provides a few lexical doublets: nay ‘reed,
cane, pipe, flute’; noy is the poetical variant in these senses, but
cf. the diminutives noyca ‘windpipe, bronchial tube; blowpipe;
weaver’s reed’ vs. nayca ‘sprout, shoot; reel, spool; (cartridge)
case, shell’.
ORTHOGRAPHY
1.9	Writing Systems: Introduction
New Persian as a literary language evolved at the court of Bukhara
more than a millennium ago, by adapting Arabic loanwords and the
Arabic alphabet to spoken Middle Persian. Since then other literary
centers, chiefly on the Iranian plateau, have dominated its development,
with only grudging and belated regard to changes in the spoken idiom
of the center and none for those of the periphery, as is the way of
literary languages. The social and political upheavals of the early
twentieth century prompted a revival of literary Persian at Bukhara and
its cultural hinterland, again based on the spoken vernacular (by now
34
CHAPTER ONE
rather different from both its predecessor and that of its neighbors in
Iran), and again adapting the lexicon and writing system of a new
ideology to existing norms. Thus was born Tajik Persian (see Chron-
ology, 5.27).
Toward the end of the 20th century, the collapse of this ideology
and its imperial network brought about a mixed reaction: a revulsion
from a culturally invasive colonial tongue, balanced by a need to maintain
the machinery of everyday administration; a reversion to classical ideals
half-lost in the course of centuries, coupled with a resolve to participate
in both the wider Persian-speaking (and writing) world, and the world
at large, that for so long had been closed to Tajikistan. In these
deliberations, language and script have played an important role in
both symbolic and practical areas. The pendulum is still in motion: the
language hovers between Sovietized past and re-Persianizing future,
the writing system shared unequally between an established (though
reformed) Cyrillic, a re-emerging Perso-Arabic, and the universal
auxiliary Latin alphabet. All these tendencies are of necessity reflected
in the present Grammar.
The Tajik Latin alphabet. Used briefly between 1928 and 1940, this
was a highly successful adaptation of the Latin alphabet as a scientific,
international system of transcription, applicable in principle to any
language, with the aid of a few extra diacritics. It was in origin a
by-product of the work of Turcophone intellectuals of Baku and Kazan,
who hoped to develop a unified Turkic alphabet; this hope was frustrated
by political more than linguistic obstacles, and the Latin alphabets as
adopted in Turkey and in Turkestan in 1928 were slightly, and unneces-
sarily, different. The Tajik version was phonographically consistent
(i.e., one character corresponded to one sound of the language, at least
in the case of consonants), and betrayed its underlying Russian matrix
only in the alphabetical order of the letters and the use of о for the
“long a” represented by alif 'm Perso-Arabic script (1.3).
As this system is listed here (see Fig. 1.10), the three digraphs and
extra e in parentheses are merely to show the correspondence with
later Cyrillic characters that are redundant in Tajik. The early drafts of
the Latin alphabet contained only lower-case letters, the modernist
argument being that capitals were superfluous; in this form a range of
PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY
35
Tajik publications was printed during 1926-29. Lower-case b took the
form of a smaller upper-case В in the majority of charts and publications.
Four diacritics were used (г-macron for terminal stressed /i/, later carried
into Cyrillic; slashed z for 111, cedillas under c for /j/ and under 5 for
/§/), and one new character (oj for /g/, as in the Turkic alphabets). The
hiatus (for 'ayn or hamza) was represented by the apostrophe (apostrof).
The remaining 31 letters are those commonly available and expected.
Despite some inconsistencies in the earliest printed texts, the whole
system can be very quickly learned by a reader with some experience
of either the Perso-Arabic or the Cyrillic scripts of Tajik. However, in
the spelling of words containing an original ‘ayn or hamza, and its
conflation of long and short vowels, it generated ambiguities that were
compounded in the Cyrillic system (see 1.2-3, 1.11-12).
The Jews of Central Asia (centered in Bukhara and Samarkand)
developed a slightly different version of the Latin alphabet to replace
their Hebrew system (see below), and used it until 1935, when they
adopted the common Tajik Latin alphabet, replaced by a common
Cyrillic alphabet in 1940. For the vowel U 0 they used 0 ti, for the
apostrophe when representing £ (Hebrew ‘ayiri), Э э, and for H h
representing q (Hebrew heth), fj 1], since these two sounds had phonemic
value in Jewish Tajik dialects.
The Hebrew alphabet. Pre Soviet Judeo-Tajik script, like Arabic,
was written from right to left, but differed from Arabic in a number of
conventions. The “short” vowels omitted in Arabic were written in
full, by means of waw and yod and often the Tiberian diacritics too.
Gimel served for both /g/ and /g/ (Arab, gayri) and, with different
diacritics, for /6/ and /j/; beth differentiated served for Ibl and Ivl, pe
differentiated for /р/ and If I, zayin was both /z/ and 111. The remaining
consonants were as in Hebrew.4
1.10	Cyrillic (1): General
Whereas the Latin writing system was an honest (if flawed) scientific
adaptation of an international, largely language-neutral, notation, the
Cyrillic alphabets introduced for the Central Asian languages in 1939
For a full table and discussion, see Rzehak 1999, pp. 93-95; 2001, pp. 269-70.
36
CHAPTER ONE
(all different, by political intent as much as linguistic punctilio) were
unabashedly Russian-specific. A few of the continuing problems will
be addressed briefly in the next two sections.5
Italics. The second column of a Russian alphabet is usually devoted
to the elaborate “copperplate” handwriting which, in most writers, soon
devolves into a more practical hand. The difficulties, such as they are,
lie in the ligatures rather than the isolated letters, so that the style is
better learned by practice. It is replaced in Fig. 1.10 by the italic
printed style based on it (called kursiv), which is widely used and
demonstrates most of the same character deviations from the upright
style, especially in lower case. The following are salient: г and f take
on a reverse “s” shape; д becomes an uncial “d”; the three members of
the и family are written like a Latin “u”; n comes to resemble a Latin
“n”, т a Latin “m”, and ш a script “w” (additional differences in
handwritten Cyrillic involve the letters б, в, and д). Because of the
coincidences with Latin u, n, and m, added to the similarities of Cyrillic
letters to Latin H, p, c, y, and x, it is inadvisable to mix Cyrillic and
Latin italics; Cyrillic italics will not be used in this book.
Alphabetical order. The Soviet-era Tajik Cyrillic alphabet (1940-
1990), in the original order of the 39 letters, is:
абвгдеёжзийклмнопрсту
фхцчшщъыьэюя * f й к, у x Ч
The four letters underlined are Russian-specific characters, introduced
in 1953, and dropped from the Tajik alphabet by 1998. Their values
are respectively /ts/, /§£/, /1/ (a close central vowel, called еры yery),
and the Soft sign (see below). The last six letters, following the asterisk,
are those specific to Tajik Persian, originally appended to the Russian
alphabet; they comprise the base letters г, и, к, у, x, ч with additional
diacritics. These were integrated into the revised alphabet, each after
its corresponding base letter (cf. Fig. 1.10), officially in 1998.
Revised spelling. Other differences from the Soviet-era alphabet are
as follows.
Russian ц /ts/ is replaced either by c /s/, even in some Russian names:
симент ‘cement’, Елсин /yelsin/ ‘Yel’tsin’; or, intervocalically,
Ьутс/ts/: сотсиалистй ‘socialist’ (adj.).
5 For more detailed discussion, see Perry 1997; Rzehak 2001, pp. 329-33.
PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY
37
Fig. 1.10 The Tajik Alphabet: Cyrillic and Latin
Cyrillic (1998)	Italic style	Letter	S name	iound	Latin (1929)	Perso- Arabic	Trans- cription
A a	А а	а	/а/	A a	_ _c 1	a
Б 6	Б б	be	/Ь/	В в	<—>	b
В в	В в	ve	/V/	V v	J	V
Г г	Г г	ge	Igl	G g	£	g
F F	F г	ge	/g/ IyI	O]q	I	g
Д д	Д д	de	/d/	D d	J	d
Е е	Е е	ye	/уе/, /е/	E e	- LS	ye, e
Ё ё	Ё ё	yo	/уо/ [jo]	(Jo jo)		yo
Ж ж	Ж ж	ze	Izl	Z z	5	z
3 з	3 з	ze	/z/	Z z	j	j Z
И и	И и	i	/i/ /к/	I i		1 _c 1	i
й	и	i-i zadanok	/i:/	I	C$	i
Й й	Й й	yot	/у/ UJ	J j	LS	У
К к	К к	ke	/к/	К к		k
К, К	К ч	qe	/q/	Q q	<5	q
Л л	Л л	le	/1/	L 1	J	i
М м	М м	me	/m/	M m	c	m
Н н	Н н	ne	/п/	N n	d	n
О о	О о	о	/о/	О о	1 Lc T	о
П п	П п	P	/р/	P p	L—J	p
Р Р	Р Р	re	/г/	R г	J	r
С с	С с	se	/s/	S s	t e. t	s
Т т	Т m	te	/t/	T t	L	t
у у	у у	и	/и/	U U	~ 1	1 и
у у	У у	й	/й/ [й]	U й		й
Ф ф	ф Ф	fe	/f/	F f		f
X х	X х	xe	/х/	X x	c	X
X х	д *	he	/Ь/	H h	-* -c	h
Ч ч	Ч ч	ce	/ё/	С c	E	c
Ч ч	Ч ч	je	/j/	Q ч	C	j
Ш ш	Ш ш	se	/§/	§ §	(J"	s
ъ	ъ	'e	/’/ Pl	J		J
Э э	Э э	e	/е/	(E e)	_c 1	e
Ю ю	Ю ю	yu	/уи/ [ju]	(Ju ju)		yu
Я я	Я я	ya	/уа/ [ja]	(Ja ja)	<_»	J		ya
38
CHAPTER ONE
The Soft signb (in Tajik, аломат-и чудой	‘separation
sign’) was formerly placed either after a final consonant to “soften”
it (a Russian requirement, irrelevant in Tajik) or between a consonant
and one of the Russian yotated vowels to force a consonantal y-
onset (usually superfluous in Tajik; e.g., дарьё Lijj /daryo/
‘river’—see 1.11, under и).
Before the vowel e, however, uncritical excision of the soft
sign may have unwanted results in some cases. In Rus. Вьетнам
‘Vietnam’ it accentuates the /у/ after the initial consonant, but if it
were dropped from the Tajik loanword the preceding consonant
would prompt the erroneous pronunciation /vetnam/ (see the rules
for e, 1.11; the Tajik spelling should remain unchanged or, if
revised, would ЬеВиетнам >  J).
Transcription. The last column of Fig. 1.10 shows transliteration
values for (Cyrillic) Tajik. For comparison, words are occasionally
transliterated or transcribed as from Standard Persian of Iran; “long”
vowels are then written as a, i, u, and “short” vowels as a, e, o.
1.11	Cyrillic (2): Consonants
There is only one Cyrillic character used to represent a Tajik consonant
which presents any inconsistencies (apart from the semi vowel й /у/;
see 1.13). This is the glottal stop sign (ъ, corresponding to the Russian
Hard sign), called аломати сакта < T<...	‘sign of hiatus’. In
spelling a word aloud, it may be named as 'e lei without ambiguity,
since it never occurs word initially, whereas the other character also
called 'e (Cyrillic Э э; see 1.12) occurs only word-initially.In Tajik
this character continues the use of the apostrophe in the Latin system
and corresponds to an instance of Arabic hamza or ‘ayn, though it is
not used initially. It is written where a hiatus is pronounced, before or
after a consonant: таърих /ta’rix/, /taarix/ ‘history, date’ (£_j jl3; contrast
SP j(_3 tdrix), Куръон 3 /qur’on/ ‘Koran’, and before a back
vowel: фаъол JL>_a /fa’ol/ ‘active’ (фаол is also found, emulating the
pronunciation as a glide, /faol/; strictly, this word is JI » tfa”ol, but
the geminate glottal stop is not pronounced in Tajik). Before or after
the front vowel и, the Hard sign is not written: Саид jxiu. /sard/ ‘the
PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY
39
name Sa’id’, фоил Jx.Li /foil/, /foyfl/ ‘agent’, табиат cii   к /tabiyat/
‘nature’ and табии /tabi’i/, /tabiyi7 ‘natural’.
Word finally, following either consonant or vowel, ъ is written (though
not usually pronounced in isolation): чамъ /jam/ ‘whole, all; plus’,
мавзуъ /mawzu/ ‘topic’. The post-consonantal ъ is retained in izofat
(where it is pronounced as a slight hiatus), but is dropped following a
vowel (since here it is not usually pronounced): чамъи шароитхо
La.L_iI j__Д ^'i-ч /jam’i saroyitho/ ‘all of the conditions’, but мавзуи
бахс	/mavztfi bahs/ ‘topic of discussion’. It is dropped
also before a vowel-initial suffix, disguising some derivatives: монеъ
j-Sl—о /топе/, /топе’/ ‘hindering’, but моней	/топеу17 ‘obst-
acle, brake’ and монеа «uCiLo /топеа/ ‘barrier’. After the front vowel
e followed by final ъ, the latter is retained, but the coordinating
enclitic -u ‘and’ takes the form ю appropriate to the glide following a
front vowel: васеъю равшан jj j j /vaseyu rawsan/ ‘spaci-
ous and bright’ ( see 4.11).
This selective use of ъ in Tajik (in attempts to emulate pronunciation)
cannot help but be inconsistent in some cases, and illustrates the perils
of mandating a phonographic writing system for a language in which
the morphology of a written word may sometimes be more significant.
Where it is selectively omitted, it tends to disguise the morphology or
identity of a lexical word. Spelling errors, such as фаол (above) and
навпарастй for навъпарастй ‘altruism’ (i.e., j_i£nav’-
parasti ‘care for the [human] species’, not *nav-parasti ‘worship of
the new’!—both pronounced /nawparasti/) confirm that, caught between
morphographic and phonographic norms, the regulators of Tajik
orthography never came to grips with 'ayn (cf. 1.5).
1.12	Cyrillic (3): Vowels and Semi-vowels
A peculiarity of Russian phonology are the four “soft” or yotated
vowels used after a consonant to indicate that it should be palatalized,
and which at the beginning of a word are pronounced with а /у-/ onset:
e, ё, я, ю (as counterparts to the “hard” vowels following regular
consonants and having for onset a glottal plosive: э, о, у, a). The
yotated vowels are used in Russian to assimilate foreign loans beginning
40
CHAPTER ONE
with /у/ (ярмарка ‘fair’ < Ger. Jahrmarkt), so it was natural for them
to represent Tajik words (or syllables) beginning with /у/ plus the
corresponding vowel: ертиш Jh. \ "ij_j /yert/й/ (Uz.) ‘piece of cloth
given to mourners as a memento’, ёр jL /уог/ ‘friend, comrade’, яла
<lL /yala/ ‘open’, гуяд /guyad/ ‘says’, юндй /yundi? ‘dishwater’.
In the sound sequence /io/, /iyo/ the second vowel is usually written
not as о but ё: сиёх. ‘black’, арманиён ‘Armenians’ (sg. арманй +
-он); similarly, /ia/, /iya/ is spelled with я, and /iu/, /iyu/ with ю: Булгория
‘Bulgaria’, ицтисодию идтимой ‘economic and social’ (4.11; see
also next paragraph, and below under И и).
In Russian, when one of these vowels (or и; see below) begins a
syllable following a consonant, it is buffered with ь the Soft sign; this
practice was followed in Tajik until discontinued in 1998, e.g., дуньё
Л
> дунё l—u-Sj /dunyo/ ‘the world’, афьюн > афюн □_________Ы /afyun/
‘opium’. Where prosodic and morphological boundaries do not coincide,
a yotated vowel may disguise a Tajik stem and/ or suffix: cf. ояд хЛ
o-y-ad/oyad/ or биёяд xjLj bi-o-y-ad/biy6yad/ ‘let him come’, where
the prefixed variant forces the use of a different character (ё) to represent
the same stem /о/, in addition to a character (я) that merges a facultative
buffer with the standard suffix /ad/ (see 3.4—5). The use of yotated
vowels had, and has, other repercussions for Tajik orthography:
E e stands for /е/ after a consonant, but /уе/ word-initially or after a
vowel: мебинем /mebinem/ ‘we see’; мегуем (i,_i
/megiiyem/ ‘we say’; after a low vowel, the /у/ may be a less
prominent glide: дароед! xJ jj /daro’ed/ ‘come in!’. (SP z, yi).
Э э (transcribed ’e) stands only for /е/, and must therefore begin a
word or syllable with this initial value: элак 'elak ‘sieve’, эхдиёт
/ehtiyot/‘caution, prudence’, боэхтиёт I-1 . ~ 1 L/bdehtiyot/
‘cautious, prudent’ (lit. ‘with prudence’); эхдиром ‘respect’,
беэхдиром	—2 a.1 /beehtirom/ ‘disrespectful’ (‘without
respect’). Compounds are written as one word in Cyrillic (1.15),
so the juxtaposition of the two different e's is a natural consequence
of the redundant Russian-specific feature. (SPzj.
Й й /у/, a consonant or semi vowel, in addition to its Russian name
yot, is known more formally in Tajik as и-и кутох, &1зj_______£ ^1
‘short i’. Thanks to the convention of yotated vowels, it is found
PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY
41
word- or syllable-initially only before the vowels и and y, and
exceptionally before о: йигит /yigit/ ‘youth, young man, (daring)
horseman’; йурга /yurga/ ‘trot’; район /rayon/ ‘region’, майор
/mayor/ ‘major’, йод /yod/ ‘iodine’ (the combination йо is found
only in a few foreign loanwords in Russian carried over into
Tajik; contrast the Persian word ёд jLj /yod/ ‘memory’). The
combination -йум may be found as the ordinal number suffix in
older texts, but was judged too pedantic and replaced by -юм
/-yum/ (2.52).
Geminate /уу/ is always written with a sequence of two distinct
graphs, й plus the appropriate yotated vowel: тайёр /tayyor/
‘ready’, айём /ауубт/ ‘days (of yore)’, муайян /muayyan/ ‘fixed,
designated’. The vowel и also counts as yotated for this purpose
(see below): мутахдйир /mutahayyfr/ ‘astonished’; й is thus never
written double.
И и /i/ is a hybrid, and a more subtle joker than e. Usually it represents
Tajik /i/ initially or internally: ин зин	/in zin/ ‘this
saddle’. It is followed by a yotated vowel in the sequences /io/ иё,
/ia/ ия, /iu/ ию (see above; SP e, ye, i, yi).
It is not classed as a yotated vowel, but does “soften” (palatalize)
most preceding consonants (in Russian), while in Tajik it assimilates
a preceding terminal /у/: наистон ^1 _Л /nayiston/ ‘reed bed,
cane brake’ (nay-iston, see 5.2). This use of и for /yi/ occurs most
frequently in izofat phrases: руи зан	/riiyi zan/ ‘the
woman’s face’, бар руи миз Jj-o j_> ‘upon the table’ (both
<руй + и); ч,ои нагз jjlj /joyi nagz/ ‘nice place’ (< ч,ой +
и). Replacement of the string й-и in izofat by и is now an
orthographic rule of Cyrillic, though some writers still favor the
earlier option: ч,ойи нагз.
The ambiguity of и leads to common spelling errors in Cyrillic,
s *
such as маит /rnaylt/ ‘dead’ (properly, майит), and сайд j ...
/sayid/ ‘sayyid, descendant of the Prophet’ (properly сайид),
confusing this with сайд '	* -/sard/ ‘fortunate; man’s name,
Sa’id’ (see 1.11). The confusion here arises additionally from the
disregard of vowel length and the reduction of geminate /уу/ to /у/
in Tajik speech; these words would be more clearly disambiguated
42
CHAPTER ONE
in the Tajik Latin alphabet, as majit, sajid and said respectively.
To represent syllable-initial /yi-/ within a word, и is preceded
not by й but by the Soft sign, ь: тагьир /tagyi'r/ ‘change’ (cf.
1.10, Soft sign)—except in three cases:
(1)	Before a personal ending on Stem I of giristan/ giry- ‘to
weep’: гирйем /giryem/ g ‘let us weep’, as distinct from
гирем j g /gfremZ ‘let us get’; morphologically, the word is
giry-em.
(2)	After the Hard sign, ъ, when и alone represents /yi/: таъин
(j _i-a * "i/ta’ym/ ‘designation, appointment’ (cf. меъёр jl  « -
/me’yor/ ‘standard, criterion’).
(3)	When geminate у is followed by i: мутахайир j -s ~ a
/mutahayyir/ ‘astonished’ (и as /yi/; cf. yotated vowels providing
the second /у/ in the sequence /уу/ in муайян, тайёр under й
above).
Word-initial и is found before a (yotated) vowel in a number
of Russian loans that originated in Greek or Latin: июн(ь) /iyun/
‘June’, июл(ь) /iyul/ ‘July’, иероглиф /iyeroglif/ ‘hieroglyph’. It
is followed by о in a few transferred loanwords such as радио
‘radio’ (Taj. /radio/ or /radio/).
The letter й (with macron; called и-и заданок	e>jj	‘stressed
i’ or и-и дароз	‘long /’) is a device to distinguish
accented word-final -i from unstressed final -i, which occurs only
(but frequently) as the syntactic izofat enclitic: e.g., дусти май
jj ‘my friend’ (2.10). Stressed final -i (SP z) occurs under
the following conditions:
(1)	As an integral part of a noun: мохй ___________о /mohi7 ‘fish’,
таксй ^,<"1 /taksf/ ‘taxi’, Алй ‘Ali’ (man’s name).
(2)	As a derivational suffix, or part of one: дустй ~
‘friendship’ (Quality noun, 5.2), тодикй o 5 j -ч L3 ‘Tajik’ (adj.;
5.4)	, рафтагй ________i j ‘having gone’ (Past Participle II, 3.44),
and several others.
(3)	As the 2sg. personal inflectional suffix on a verb stem: (ту)
омадй/ меой ^1	(jS) ‘you came/ come’ (3.4).
(4)	Any of several monosyllables: кй ^‘who?’ (as distinct from
the unstressed subordinizer ки <_g), чй ‘what?’, ей ‘thir-
PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY
43
ty’, -мй? S(interrogative enclitic; 4.8).
The macron on final -й is dropped before a following affix of
any kind. This includes:
(1)	Enclitics, such as pronominals: душманиашон J Lil u \л L.j
(du£marii-a&ori) ‘their enmity’, куштиаш I o‘Л ‘you killed
him’ (2.30); the Indefinite/ Specific marker -e, as in мохие ‘a
fish’ (2.7); the postposition -po, as in киро дидй? I
(kl-ro) ‘whom did you see?’ (2.17); and the -и of izofat. дустии
халкдо La jlA "«   jj Zdirstiyi xalqhdZ ‘friendship of peoples’
(2.10; note that the combination ии i-yi incorporates the glide
Ziyi/).
(2)	Suffixes, grammatical (esp. both plural markers) and
derivational: пешгуихо'prediction s’ (sg. пешгуй	* j),
эрониёх j I____Ll j_>I ‘Iranians’ (note the change to yotated ё);
норозигй	(no-rozi-gi, 5.2) ‘discontent, disagreement’.
(3)	Compounding elements: таравдй ‘progress’ + парвар ‘nur-
turing, nurturer’ (Stem I parvardan ‘to foster, cultivate’) gives
тараккипарвар taraqqiparvar ‘progressive’ (noun, adj.).
У у /й/ is the only letter that is here transcribed (Zii/) and transliterated
(й) using different characters; this is to avoid any confusion with
the use of the macron (conventionally, and as with Cyrillic Й) to
represent vowel length. It must be remembered that the diacritic
on Cyrillic у denotes a different vowel quality, a separate phoneme,
from у /и/(1.3 ; SP о, и).
In Tajik-language publications printed in Uzbekistan, У у often
appears as У у, this being the equivalent Uzbek letter.
1.13 Perso-Arabic (1): General
Literary Persian has been written for more than a millennium in the
Arabic alphabet, with the addition of four modified characters to represent
Persian sounds not found in Arabic: <_j /р/, g /6/, j 111, & ZgZ.
Forms. The letters are essentially consonants, conventionally grouped
by shape, those of similar shape being differentiated by the position
and number of diacritic dots. The system is quite well adapted to all
dialects of Persian, and there are no essential differences between the
44
CHAPTER ONE
orthographies of Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia (but see below,
Choices).
The chief calligraphic style in pre-modem Central Asia was nasta’liq,
suited to handwriting and lithographic printing (since the ligatures are
not necessarily on the base line); in the early twentieth century naskh
(in which the ligatures lie on the base line) supplanted it for text
printed in movable type, and is nowadays preferred for offset and
computer-generated typeface. The script is semi-cursive: all characters
may be joined to the preceding letter (“Final form” column, if applicable)
and most to the following letter (“Initial form”); seven may not be
joined to the following letter (blank in the “Medial form” column). All
thus have at least two different forms according to whether they occur
in word-initial, medial, or final form, and with or without ligatures.
There is only one combination of letters that may not be immediately
transparent, the /ow-a/z/ligature: i (initial and independent form, as in
j-сУ logar ‘thin, lean’), yL (medial and final form, as in ^*yl__ salom
‘greeting’).
Names. Not all the names of the letters are given in Arabic script in
Fig. 1.12; most of those where the spoken form ends in Z-е/ have a
classical written form ending in alif which may be found in older
dictionaries (fe = Li, ye = L, etc.), but this does not correspond to the
spoken form, and in modern written usage the Perso-Arabic written
name of a letter of this class is its independent form:	___=>.
!,harf-i “pe"-ro navised! ‘write the letter P’. The two letters h
are named for their respective positions in the abjad groups (the
numerical sequence of the letters; see 2.55).
Choices. A number of the Arabic consonants with phonetic values Zt/,
Zs/, /z/, Zh/ and /7 are redundant (see the Perso-Arabic column in Fig.
1.10), since the phonemes they represented in Arabic were irrelevant
to Persian. They continue in use to write words of Arabic origin; to
write Persian and non-Arabic loanwords with these sounds, the default
characters are t, s, j z, _a h. In the case of ₽ hamza, this sign
may play a part in the orthography of glides (see 1.15; for the Cyrillic
orthography of hamza and 'ayn, see 1.11).
A few of these redundant characters are also found in words of
Persian or Turkic origin, e.g. j sad ‘hundred’, sum ‘som’ (a
PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY
45
currency unit of the Bukhara emirate), tHy ‘wedding; circumcision
feast’, and the verbs - j j—S \j ~	* C guzastan/ guzar- ‘to pass’ and
-jl V <	__£1л ^guzostan! guzor- ‘to place, let’. Others appear as
variants in the representation of foreign geographical terms, esp. those
mediated through Turkish and Russian: I -Jtk-J or <t—‘Italy’,
l_4iLL_jj_>or «I _i‘>~ jj-j ‘Britain’.
In some words, especially those of Turkic provenance, the vowels
may be written out fully (using j vov and ye; cf. Hebrew alphabet,
1.10): j  ' I; " /miltiq/ ‘rifle’, . < /uzbek/ ‘Uzbek’ (cf. the more
USUal , 5 ijl a).
Two further consonantal conventions should be noted.
In some Persian words, the (usually initial) digraph -j-S. xv- (a
relic of a phonetic combination no longer used) is pronounced /х/
followed by a vowel: ._>!jA xob ‘sleep’, J aSljA xondan ‘to read’,
Л Л
(jiuJ^-Lxohix ‘request’, jlj Ч л ustuxon ‘bone’,
‘kin’. The Cyrillic spelling reflects the current pronunciation. In
one case, this disguises a homophone which is disambiguated in
Perso-Arabic: j" j_i.‘to wish’ (Stem I xox.- -~л1/xoh-/),
j- ,,.1 <‘to rise’ (Stem Iхез—j—/xez-/); both Stems II are
written as хост- in Cyrillic, and pronounced as /xost-/.
[1] tasdid ‘emphasis’: To indicate a reduplicated consonant, the sign _
is optionally written above the single consonant: oj—a muddat
‘period, while’; a vowel diacritic may be written above it (or, in
the case of zer, beneath it:	ziddi milli ‘anti-national’).
Tasdid may sometimes be needed to distinguish homographs:
qut ‘nourishment’, cjj—Ь quvvat ‘strength’. The consonant
/у/ is often doubled, but this is not always predictable from the
pattern: jl  > bayon ‘explanation’, jl j c ayyor ‘bandit’;
tarbiya ‘upbringing’, <uJj_c adliyya ‘judiciary’.
A related use of tasdid is to indicate the assimilation of the /1/
of the Arabic definite article al- to the first consonant of the
following noun, when this is one of fourteen so called samsi letters:
<Ldl /albatta/ ‘of course’, but	Ljl /assalomu alaykum/
‘greetings’ (Ar. ‘peace upon you’). See also 1.12.
46
CHAPTER ONE
Fig. 1.13 The Tajik Alphabet: Perso-Arabic
Cyrillic	Sound	Letter		FORMS	OF ARABIC CHARACTERS		
equivt.		name		Indept. 1 Final 		< Medial •	< Initial
Initial vowel; о	/о/	alif	uiJI	1	L		Tl
6	/Ь/	be	(b)	GJ	Ua.		
П	/р/	pe		UJ			-1
T	/V	te	(b)	о			J
c	Isl	se (-i se nuqta)		о			J
4	/j/	jim		с	&		
4	/с/	ce		a	&	-Л-	->
*	Ihl	he (-i hum)		с	t	-Л-	->
X	/х/	xe		t	Cr	-Л-	->
Д	/d/	dot	Jh	ь	Jl		3
3	/z/	zol	Jis	5	Jl		S
p	/г/	re	(b)	j	j-		j
3	/z/	ze	(15)	j	j-		j
ж	Pzl	ie		j	j-		j
c	Isl	sin		lF		—th.	-Ml
Ш	/§/	sin	lZ?-*	LT1	л	—Mb*	
c	Isl	sod		lz^		-м2-	
3	/z/	zod			^3-	-M3-	
T	/t/	to	u,	1,	dx	u	1,
3	/z/	zo		ъ	Ja.	Ja.	Ji
Initial vowel; Ъ	/7	ayn	Cz^	t	t	-Ж-	-t
F	/g/	gayn	LZ^	I	t	Ju	_£
Ф	/f/	fe	(li)			J.	J
K,	/q/	qof	<JL5	J	3-	-A.	J
К	/к/	kof	(JIS'		uSL	JL	s
г	/g/	gof	<jlT	uT	t __d_	JL	
л	/1/	lom		J	J-	JL	J
м	/m/	mim		г	r	-A-	-Л
н	/П/	nun					-1
в, у, у	/v, U, Й/	vov	jlj	J	J-		J
х;, final а	/h/	he (-i havvaz)		b	d_	-g-	Jb
й, и, й, е	/у, i, i, e/	ye	(L)		GS"		
PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY
47
1.14 Perso-Arabic (2): Vowels
There remain five vowel diacritics, and four consonants which, besides
their consonantal roles, play a part in specifying the vowels of Tajik
and otherwise regulating the orthography.
Vowel diacritics: The three conventionally “short” vowels of Persian,
corresponding to /а/, some of /i/ and /е/, and some of /и/ and /й/ in
Tajik (see 1.3), are not usually written except to disambiguate
homographs and to specify vowels in dictionaries and grammars. For
instance, the consonantal matrix jj___5 may stand for any of the three
words jj-S gard ‘dust’, j ‘round’, and jgurd ‘hero’, which may
not be identifiable even in context without the diacritics.
These will accordingly be written in this grammar to assist in word
recognition and especially to make explicit the izofat and other gram-
matical relationships. Collectively called cjl £j =- harakot, lit.
‘movements’, they are placed directly above or below any consonant
except the terminal (but see zer)'.
_ (called zabar ‘above’), represents /a/: <_jk talab ‘demand’, I kl
atlas ‘satin’. It should not be confused with the longer, horizontal
madid) placed over alif(see below). It may also indicate /а/ as the
first component of a diphthong, when followed by or j j..a
mayda ‘small’, savr /sawr/ ‘third month of the Iranian solar
year’ (see 1.4, Diphthongs).
 (zer ‘below’), shaped like zabar, represents short /i/, or /е/ as an
allophone of this before /h/ or /7 (see 1.4, Lowering): о jj zireh
‘armor’, a mehnat ‘toil, labor’, ejjL^.1 ijozat ‘permission’,
‘verb’. When used under the last consonant in a word, it
indicates the izofat enclitic: 4 ~	Jj>_a fe’l-i soxta ‘Complex
verb’ (see \ AS, Izofat).
_ (pes ‘before’), resembling a miniature vov, represents short /и/, or
/й/ as an allophone of this before /h/ or/7 (1.3, Lowering): jLs^I
ustod ‘professor’, - must ‘fist’, <1^kuhna ‘old’, 4 I» Л, su’la
‘flame’.
|Z] (sukun ‘quiescence’) denotes the absence of a vowel following the
consonant over which it appears:	must. It is not often used,
and will not be written in what follows; unless a vowel can be
48
CHAPTER ONE
deduced from the form of the word, the absence of one (i.e., the
occurrence of a consonant cluster) should be presumed.
[Z] (tanvin ‘nunation’), a double zabar above (in some fonts, before) a
final alif, is pronounced /ап/, and represents a class of Arabic
adverb (2.46): I \_> n 4" /taxmi:nan/ ‘approximately’, ^"jl/avvalan/
‘first(ly)’. These may be written without the doubled zabar.
If the final letter is alif maqsura (see 1.15, Ke for alif)), the diacritic
is placed over this: o'm a /maanan/ ‘in meaning, in content’.
A few ending in -atan are properly written (in Arabic) without
alif, the tanvin being placed over the Arabic feminine ending graph
(two-dotted й: 4—-i_ /nisbatan/ ‘relatively’. In (Tajik) Persian,
however, they are more usually regularized, the feminine ending
graph being changed to tandalif added: I
Consonants as vowels. The alphabet in most of its versions has
always used certain signs to represent both consonants and vowels (cf.
V for V and U, I for I and J, in Latin and its vernacular heirs up until
recent centuries). In the Perso-Arabic pack, the two semi-vowels w and
y, alif, and he-i havvaz are the jokers.
_A /h/ as a consonant may occur in any position. It is the character
which most varies in shape in different positions, and in addition
has alternate written styles for each of the printed standards
illustrated here: har ‘each’, j ц mehr ‘affection’, *1 . ... sipoh
‘army’.
It has an important and frequent secondary function, to denote
a final vowel /а/ (chiefly in nominals; referred to here as “Vocalic
/г”): о jLa. cora ‘remedy’, <u_JL«—a muallima ‘(female) teacher’, <t_j
na ‘no, not’, 4_i ba ‘to, at’ (separate form of the preposition, also
written prefixed to its nominal, - -j). In several monosyllabic
words -h may denote other “short” or covert vowels: /i/ in <t__5 ki
‘that’ (complementizer; see 4.15), «La. ci ‘what’, and /е/ in «i_se
‘three’.
In its vocalic function it occurs only after a consonant, which
may includej or <_$: 6j__beva ‘widow’, d_________ш soya ‘shadow,
shade’. It never follows alef, which in this context can only signal
the vowel /о/ (hence h would have to stand for consonantal /г:
с,I_j__cu sipoh ‘army’). Vocalic h is always written in final form,
PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY
49
never linking even to a plural suffix or enclitic:	‘houses’
(see also izofat below, and Morphographics, 1.15).
Note that there are also a few words with these configurations
where final <_ has its regular consonantal value: Gj_i farbeh ‘fat,
sleek’, <LS tah ‘bottom’, oj dah ‘ten’, deh ‘village’. Such nouns
always join onto derivational suffixes as a single word, and may
do so with juxtaposed compounding words and plural suffixes
(though they are not obliged to):	____a farbeKi ‘corpulence,
fat(ness)’, jLIaj dehqon ‘peasant, farmer’; <L4l_a.<d	'.I д"
tahxona ‘cellar, basement, hold [ship]’; Laoj \l $ dahho ‘tens,
dozens, decades’.
T < I alif. as the prime carrier of hamza, the glottal stop, tz/z/must begin
every word with a vowel onset. This may be any vowel, as specified
by one of the diacritics or semi vowels (see below): ...I asp
‘horse’, jyLcI e'lon ‘announcement’, imrilz ‘today’,
wn?ed‘hope’, 4_________utopiya ‘utopia’,  <  Jjl Uzbek ‘Uzbek’,
^1 in /i:n/ ‘this’.
Its second function is to represent the vowel /о/ (medially and
terminally): clJI___a. holat ‘situation’, ‘up, above’. When /о/
occurs initially (or syllable-initially, after a consonant), the
combination of alif and mad T is used instead of two alifs\ on
‘that’, jlj-s qur’on ‘Koran’. (The full term for this sign is maddi
alif' prolongation of a’\ mad(d) is one of the Arabic geminates, cf.
1.8. For other functions, see 1.14, hamza). This sign should not be
confused with the shorter, straight zabar (Vowel diacritics, above).
When the vowel /о/ is transcribed or transliterated from Standard
Persian as distinct from Tajik (in phonological or lexical com-
parisons), it is here given the form /а/, a. In transliterating from
Classical Persian (where vowel length is at issue; similarly, ё, i,
6, and u), or in a bibliographical context, it is represented as a.
Thus, <CiLA ‘house’ is represented as being written xona and pro-
nounced /хопа/ in Tajik; asxane and /хапе/ respectively in SP; as
xana in CP, and asxdne in a modern bibliographical citation.
j vov is a consonant:	j viloyat ‘province’, j j jT ovard ‘brought’,
j(_S gov ‘cow, bull’. It may also stand for the vowels /и/ and /й/:
bud ‘was’, jj du ‘two’, jS ‘you’ (2.27-28; du and tu are the
50
CHAPTER ONE
only two Tajik words ending in “short” /и/, here represented
uniquely by	ruy ‘face’, jl й ‘he, she’. It also stands for
the diphthong /aw/ (which is regarded as an allophone of the
vowel-consonant combination /av/: jj rav /raw/ ‘go!’ (1.3. See
also 1.14, Hamza).
The vowel /ц/ has different historical sources (see 1.2). When it
comes from the majhul vowel 6, it is written as у Jjj /ruz/
‘day’, t>j__£ /kiih/ ‘mountain’. Likewise in an Uzbek or Turkic
loanword:	/кйгра/ ‘quilt’,  < »/кйтак/ ‘help’ (contrast
SP < a<) —except initially, where spelling vacillates between the
literary norm without vov and fuller vernacular variants: <^jjl
/urdak/ or/urdak/ ‘duck’; ijjl .ci-ijjl /iizbek/.
When it originates as a lowering of (short) /и/ before /h/ or /7 (see
1.4), it is not represented in the script (or, optionally, by pes)\
<i '(]< Zkiihna/ ‘old’, 4_L*_i /§й’1а/ ‘flame’—except when this effect
coincides with a long й in Arabic: £уш /татпй’/ ‘prohibited’.
When j represents the (short, unstressed) enclitic -u ‘and’ in
lexical coordinate compounds (cf. 5.11), it is sometimes replaced
(covertly or overtly) by the short vowel written optionally with
рек. ° < j ,-,8 < /guftugu/ ‘conversation’. Conversely, in
some early texts j may be found representing an allophone /и/ of
the (stressed) verbal prefix bi- (3.5), in which this short vowel is
not normally written: - _ ' _ jj; /bubinem/ ‘let’s see’, л _> A \
/bubaxsed/ ‘excuse [me]’.
^ye is similarly both a consonant in any position: j \^.yaroq ‘weapon’,
Ljj daryo ‘river’, coy ‘tea’; and a carrier for the vowels /i/
(when “stable-equivalent”) and /е/ (stable) and the diphthong /ay/:
j-il in ‘this’, > !< kilid ‘key’, ^1____c oti ‘superior’; jlj-J eron
‘Iran’, ol j < /xele/ ‘much, very’; J_tez ‘swift’, kore ‘a
deed’ (Indefinite or Specific enclitic; see 2.7-9). Note that the
final form of ye has no dots.
In early texts, may be dropped from some common words
where (as long,/i:/) Persian orthography requires it: ojLLuJ <L3_bj
/rafta istodaast/ ‘is going’ (Present Progressive tense, 3.18);
jj . jj j  /bistudu/ ‘twenty-two’ (for the missing vov,
see also above, and 4.11).
PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY
51
The vowel /е/ has different sources, and may be found with or
without initially or medially. When written with it cannot be
simply equated with the Persian majhul vowel /е/ (1.3): cf. LA
/хё1е/ < Ar. J-Д xayl ‘troop’, J_J j Ма1ё1/ ‘evidence, proof’ < Ar.
datil, J---=>_jI /ejod/ ‘creation, production’ < Ar. ijad (cf. 1.4,
Lowering). Turkic loanwords beginning with alif-ye are generally
in /е/r _J /eldi7 ‘ambassador’, and those in alif alone in /i/:
jL-iJI /ilgor/ ‘raid’. Conversely, jl_/puSaymon/ ‘sorry’
corresponds to Middle and Early New Persian paseman. Various
phonetic rules have applied, but in the absence of regular ortho-
graphic correspondences each word should be checked in the
dictionary, whatever its etymology.
The vowel combination /io/, pronounced /iyo/, is written with у
and alif. (jLu-o miyon ‘waist; between’, >1  ...siyph ‘black’. The
glide from /о/, /и/, or /й/ to /i:/ is usually buffered by у before the
second, vocalic, у. l>j-jU/poyi:n/ ‘down’, j-^jj/riPhn/ ‘of brass,
brazen’, though in older usage the buffer was more commonly
hamza over undotted y. < j_xll_i(see also 1.15, Suffixes).
In a few Arabic words, final represents the vowel /о/ (an
allograph of а/г/known as alif maqsura ‘shortened a'):	jl avlo
‘best’, hatto ‘even’ о Ъ л ma’no ‘meaning, content’, ... 
iso ‘Jesus’, 5-o muso ‘Moses’ are the most common. (See also
1.15, Hamza, Izofat, Suffixes).
1.15 Morphographics
When semi-vowels (j and or consonants which may emulate vowels
(a/i/and _a) are adjacent, their respective functions (either as vowel or
consonant) must be identified for the sequence to be intelligible. Problems
arise in transition from one vowel to another, particularly at mor-
phological junctions (words and their affixes and enclitics, notably
izofat). The following combinations and conventions apply.
hamza-. Primarily the sign of the glottal stop (graphically it is
the head of the letter^), hamza has evolved some secondary functions
in Perso-Arabic script.
52
CHAPTER ONE
Glottal stop: Here hamza shows some orthographic irregularities. For a
vowel onset it belongs over or underneath alif (depending on the
vowel), but is not normally written (see examples, 1.13); inside a
word, it is written over alif after or before the vowel /a/: j______pls
ta’sir ‘effect’,  ° ta’assuf ‘sorrow, regret’; over vov after /и/
or /й/: 3J3J -5-1 j-l lu’lu ‘pearl’ (lit.),	____о mu’allif ‘author’,
JI j   su’d ‘question’; and over undotted after /i/, /е/, or lol:
<	кjS tavti’a ‘extension, expansion’ (lit.; Cyr. тавтия),э ~ T
te’atr ‘theater’, <x2il jlqiro’at ‘reading’. Between vowels, the hia-
tus is usually realized as a glide: /tawtiya/, /teyatr/, /suwol (cf. 1.4).
In a few common words the hamza may be omitted in writing,
conforming with the pronunciation: JI/suwol/ (Cyr. суол; this
word is usually pronounced /savol/ or /sawol, which is reflected in
the usual Cyrillic form савол).
Before /i/ or /е/, hamza is written over undotted after /a/:
ra’is ‘chief, president’. It is also written so after /о/ {alif) in classical
or literary usage:	fo’ida ‘profit’, J^L-- n masa’il ‘problems,
matters’, j__me’o’ed ‘you come’. Modern usage prefers to
substitute ye, which usually reflects the pronunciation: e>j_jl___Ь
/foyida/, JjLux-c /masoyil/, д . J /meoyed/ (see Suffixes below,
and 3.4).
After a consonant, Arabic orthography calls for hamza to be written
over the carrier of the vowel which follows: 5 «_2> Л. This is
followed for the vowel /о/ (1): jTqur’on,	al’on ‘now’ (see
madd, 1.14), and for /а/ in a few words of (Tajik) Persian, e.g.,
^*1 jltav’am /taw’am/ ‘twin’, and occasionally in mas’ala
‘problem, matter’ and cJjur’at ‘audacity’; however, it is more
usually placed over undotted medial ye, as_L or after a ligature,
irrespective of the following vowel: «Iе.-.. n mas’ala, jur’at,
amas’ul ‘responsible’.
Final hamza is written independently after a consonant or /и/:	juz’
‘part’, JI a » ". ...I <=su’iste’mol ‘abuse’ (Cyr. суиистеъмол,
interpreting a Persianized izofat conversion of the Arabic col-
location); and over alif after /а/: M .1 * mabda’ ‘beginning’. It is
omitted (reflecting the pronunciation) in cases where in Arabic it
would be written after a final vowel other than /а/: I—ulamo
PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY
53
‘the clergy’, jI ; » mabodi ‘beginnings, principia’ (for^.U  *
mabodi’, pl. of mabda’).
Suffixes and enclitics. Suffixes beginning with a vowel when added
to a word-final semi-vowel present few problems, since final j and
behave like any other consonant: nay + iston jl ~ ... A ‘reed bed’ (cf.
1.11), rav + on Jljj ‘going, fluent’. Alif, vov, and he as vowels have
special needs.
Alif lol and vov /и/, liil: The buffer is ye:	<< ; baca-ho-e ‘(some)
children’, ^1—a. joe ‘a place’, or joye if the base is taken to be
joy (1.8)—in either case the pronunciation is the same, /joe/
or /joye/; ^j-IT olue /olue/ ‘plum’; j Л sue /sue/ ‘a husband’.
Formerly, the first of two such ye’s was written with hamza:
j—i	jJT	and this is still an option, provided it is
done consistently. There is little point in tiying to vaiy the buffer
character to accord with the pronunciation, since this is not
sufficiently distinctive. In any case, the majority of nouns and
verb Stems I with these endings theoretically terminate in -y, hence
ending in a consonant:	/guy/ or /bigii/ ‘say!’ (see 1.8,
3-4).
This rule applies also to the suffixes -i: J д ~ /tanhoyi/
‘solitude’,	/пакйТ/ ‘good(ness)’ (5.2),	1° tilloi
‘gold(en)’ (5.4).
Vocalic h: The vowel denoted by this special character must be preserved
at the end of the base word, so a suffix or enclitic—whether
beginning with a vowel or a consonant—is in most cases written
separately, as if it began a new word: nas’a + mand л - <i Л, '.‘drug
addict’ (5.5), nabera + ak t> j j ,i ~i /naberayak/ ‘little grandchild’
(the diminutive -ak becomes -yak after a vowel; 5.2).
There are two ways of adding adjectival -i to a word in vocalic
h: (1) Replace h with the Arabicate glide morph v, whether the
base is an Arabic loanword or not (cf. partia-vi, 5.4): thus, from
Ar. «11 л j ~a qabila ‘tribe’, is formed euL'.1 * qabilavi ‘tribal’.
(2)	Replace it with the Persian morphophonemic alternant in g
(1.8), whether the base is etymologically Persian or not, to get
*qabilagi ‘tribal’. The selected, or preferred, variant should
be sought in the lexicon. The method of simple juxtaposition, as
54
CHAPTER ONE
followed in SP for modern coinages	ь 3 . a qahveyi ‘coffee-
colored’,^! <i I-. a ‘tribal’) is not used in Tajik (see 5.4, -i).
Related to the buffer -g- above is the case of the nominal
suffixes -on[a] and -i (1.8; 5.2, 5.4), where g replaces ft; e.g.,
from «I ~ ... < xasta ‘weary, sick’, <t T.jj rafta ‘gone’, xona
‘house, home’ come respectively 7i_______-___xastagi ‘fatigue’,
jl<~ 'oj raftagon ‘the departed’,	‘domestic, household’
(adj.). Such derivatives are usually written as a single word, but
those in -gi in partcular may also be found as 4______s________i.
t>jetc. (see 3.44-46).
The Indefinite-Specific enclitic -e, and its homograph the Relative
enclitic -e, which have an unvarying vowel onset, are written with
a/z/and ye. ^1 <lSLA хопа-е /хопауе/ ‘a house’ (2.7); <_$! < mjd-o
Ci I 3A LaJiT j j <S/madrasaeki dar onjo mexonem/ ‘the school
where we study’ (4.42).
Izofat (see 2.10): the enclitic /i/ linking head and modifier in this basic
NP is not usually indicated in Perso-Arabic script, except (occasionally)
to resolve an ambiguity. There are three ways in which it may be made
explicit, depending on how the head word is terminated.
Consonants: After a regular consonant, the izofat syllable may be
indicated by means of the vowel diacritic zer: j_o j_______ш pisar-i
man ‘my son’ ojJ j J Л. soh-i zinda ‘the living king’ (name of a
shrine), at j 11. ^la. coy-i siyoh ‘black tea’, J	gov-ipira-
zan ‘the old woman’s cow’. This practice will be followed in this
Grammar (but is not usual in ordinary texts).
Ayn Despite its rarely being pronounced in final position (1.5) and
the vagaries of Cyrillic orthography (1.11), £ is treated as a regular
consonant in Perso-Arabic script. Izofat will be shown here by
means of the diacritic zer: uLk-il £jJJ= tulu’-i oftob /tuluyi oftob/
‘sunrise’.
With <5 : When the head ends in alif as /о/, or vov as /и/ or /й/, izofat
is shown (indirectly) by means of independent 3I bobo-yi
й ‘his grandfather’, Л ‘.h	kitobho-yi donisjiiy ‘the
student’s books’, <i_Laj_> <53-^! j zonu-yi barahna ‘bare knee’,
л .o... тй-yi safed ‘white hair’. Three important points should
be noted:
PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY
55
(1)	This /у/ does not in itself represent the enclitic vowel /i/, but
the consonant glide /у/ which precedes it. The full representation
of izofat here requires the addition of the vowel diacritic zer (see
below): jl ejLL and ^j-o. However, the presence of the
where it is known not to be part of the nominal morphology (esp.
after the plural suffix -ho) is sufficient to reveal an izofat. With
the exception of the type л a m тй-y-i safed (see point 3),
such phrases will be written without zer in this Grammar.
(2)	In nouns ending in representing /i/, as the final morphological
syllable, the glide is incorporated in this and zer may be added
to explicitly mark izofat. j -> >	__a mohi-i bahr /mohPi bahr/
‘sea fish’, Jjl к n neki-i mutlaq ‘absolute good’.
In older texts, izofat after final	may be written with a miniature
above it (or, if printed, a hamza):
(3)	In many nouns ending in -o (e.g., La. jo ‘place’), and most of
those in -u (like j_o mu ‘hair’), the canonical form actually ends in
consonantal -у /у/: ^La. joy, muy (see 1.8). Accordingly the
addition of zer to the semi-consonant in these cases is the same
procedure as adding it to the final consonant of a regular noun,
e.g., Л A jL ‘cold wind’. It follows that an explicit zer can
disambiguate an izofat phrase from a Possessive (exocentric)
compound (5.8), where alone would be insufficient to indicate
the presence of izofat: j j i	‘white hair’, but л »	*
тйу-safed ‘old man’ (lit. ‘white-haired [one]’; cf. 2.3).
Kefor alif lol: After a noun ending in alif maqsura, i.e., representing
the vowel /о/ (1.13), the ye is changed into an alif and izofat is
shown obligatorily by means of as above:	» ma’no gives
<i_Lo—a. i^Lui—о /maanoyi jumla/ ‘the meaning of the sentence’;
jr iso gives j  »/isoyi masfh/ ‘Jesus the Messiah’.
Hamza ₽: If ₽ is written at the end of a word, it is treated as a
consonant; either zer is added, or nothing: /.j ^1 ,a „[ imzo-i
ra’is ‘the chairman’s signature’, Jjl ________a. juz’-i avval ‘the first
part’. Most words like imzo, however, are normally written in the
modern language without hamza, and are thus followed by
indicating the glide into the izofat syllable (see above, (1)):
^L-Lol /imzoyi rais/.
56
CHAPTER ONE
Vocalic h: The izofat syllable is denoted by a miniature^ placed over
the -h: L LllA xona-i mo /xonayi mo/ ‘our house’, <i ~	Л. ь j
kuza-i sikasta ‘broken pitcher’. This sign is often replaced in printing
by a hamza sign.
An alternative convention, used in Iranian printing for children’s
books and modern poetry, is a full-size independent placed
after the -h: Jjl daf’a-i avval ‘the first time’.
The first of these conventions will be used regularly in what
follows. Note that these devices appear rarely in normal Perso-
Arabic texts.
1.16 Segmentation and Punctuation
The Cyrillic and the Perso-Arabic writing systems use different
conventions in the separation and conjunction of words and affixes,
enclitics, etc., and in punctuation. Perso-Arabic conventions generally
correspond to those of Iranian writers, but have never been standardized
in Central Asia. Tajik Cyrillic orthography, including the rules of word
division, was revised several times (1944, 1953, 1967, 1972, 1998),
and inconsistencies will be found in literary examples from different
periods. Particular points are treated more fully in pertinent sections of
other chapters.
Segmentation. In general, Cyrillic writes nominal compounds, and
words with plural suffixes and grammatical enclitics, as one word;
Perso-Arabic prefers, where the semi-cursive nature of the script
permits, to juxtapose these components separately: душманиашон
jLil o ‘i л .ij (dusmarii-aSori) ‘their enmity’ (2.29), киро дидй?
(Id-ro) ‘whom did you see? (2.17); розиед?
S ijl ^^1 j (rozi + -ed) ‘are you content/ do you agree?’ (3.6; for
the Cyrillic spelling, cf. 1.12). The Perso-Arabic strategy helps to
make larger or less familiar units more legible; however, the semi-
cursive script ensures that (a) some components which end in a
non-linking letter or vocalic h are always end-stopped in any case,
e.g., пахтатозакунй ь ~i 4 _i ‘cotton cleaning’; and (b)
characters of this class may occur anywhere in a word, tending to
confuse the segmentation.
PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY
57
For finite verbs and infinitives, Cyrillic writes the nominal com-
ponent of a Composite verb separately, but connects verbal prefixes;
Perso-Arabic prefers to separate me-, but connects bi- and na- to
the stem: фаромуш мекунанд	‘they forget’.
In Cyrillic, the parts of most Complex verbs (those with preverbs;
5.16) are often written as one word even in finite verbs:
бознадоштам ______ilL jl_> ‘I did not stop (it)’; бармедоштем
____L___ilj ‘we picked [it] up’; polysyllabic preverbs are
usually written separate in Cyrillic: фаро гирифтанд I j__a
л‘.~, a‘they enveloped’ (for verb prefixes, see 3.5; for Complex
verbs, 5.16-17).
In nominal derivatives and compounds from Composite and
Complex verbs, Cyrillic links all the components into one, whereas
Perso-Arabic separates them (except prefixes and suffixes), e.g.:
фаромушнашаванда	uij-alj-s ‘unforgettable’ (5.9);
х,амох,ангсоз jL < ~i aT ‘coordinator’;
себгундорй	‘apple gathering’;
корфармудашавандагй	jL£ ‘commonness,
conventionality’.
Adverbial phrases are sometimes written as one word in Cyrillic:
натанх,о ‘not only’.
Notable exceptions, where Cyrillic writes compounds as separate
words and Perso-Arabic usually combines them, are: ин ч,о
I '  I ‘here’ (‘this place’), он ч,о La. jT ‘there’ (‘that place’);
and in use of the preposition ba ‘to, at’. In Cyrillic this is always
written separately; in Perso-Arabic it may always be written
separately (with vocalic h), but is usually joined to shorter and
more common nominals (e.g., pronouns, or parts of a prepositional
phrase): ба он ч.о LIT «и  Liu‘(to) there’.
Hyphens are used in both scripts mainly to link reduplicated
expressions: милт-милт LLo-cui-o ‘blinking, twinkling’ (5.12),
and enclitic exclamations: кайфи хуб дорад-куя! >_। <
!«u ‘this is really fun!’ (4.10). They also join suffixes and
enclitics to numerals, which are frequently used (in Cyrillic) in
connected prose: одами 100-сола [садсола] ‘centenarian’ (2.51-
52). In examples given here, they must be distinguished from the
58
CHAPTER ONE
shorter morpheme-dividers (e.g., одам-и 100-сол-а [сад-сола]),
which are not part of the actual orthography.
Arabicate names. Muslim personal names comprising an Arabic collo-
cation (generally in an Arabic izofat construction; cf. 5.23) display
the most discrepancy between Perso-Arabic and Cyrillic repre-
sentation.
Perso-Arabic reproduces the Arabic original, complete with al-
for the definite article and, often, tasdid over the following letter
if it is assimilated in pronunciation (1.13). Cyrillic reproduces the
vernacular pronunciation, with further elements of assimilation
and elision, as a single word. The article al- (or its assimilated
form) is written with initial A- at the beginning of a word or
phrase, and with y- (after the prefix abd- or before the stem -Ho)
or и- in other positions: Абдусаттор /abdusattor/ I 11	. <•
‘abd us-sattor, Насрулло /nasrullo/ <ШI j \ nasr ul-loh,
Мухиддин /muhiddun/	n muhyi d din. Any assimilat-
ed geminate following abdu- is normally reduced to a single letter
in Cyrillic.
Compound names in Persianate forms, without the Arabic article,
are also usually written as a single word in Cyrillic: Адмадмахдум
j» jj 4 n j-ojsJ Ahmad Makhdum.
Capitalization. Capital letters are used at the beginning of a sentence,
and for personal and place names, but not for adjectives, etc.,
derived from them: Карл Маркс ‘Karl Marx’, марксист ‘Marxist’
(noun), марксисты ‘Marxist’ (adj.), etc.; Худанд ‘Khujand’,
худандй ‘of/ from Khujand’. An exception is made when the
affiliative adjective has become an essential part of a person’s
name: Камоли Худандй JL^ ‘Kamal-i Khujandi’.
Country names are capitalized, but terms for inhabitants, related
languages, etc., are not: Тодикистон ‘Tajikistan’, but (як) тодик
‘(a) Tajik’, (забони) тодикй ‘Tajik (language)’.
Names and epithets of God are capitalized (though not always
in Soviet-era texts): Оллох ‘Allah’, Парвардигор ‘the Nurturer’.
So are officers and offices of state: Раиси думдур ‘the President
of the Republic’, Вазорати хорида ‘the Foreign Ministry’. Months
are not capitalized (2.54): июн ‘June’, рабеъ-ус-сонй ‘Rabi‘ II’
PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY
59
(except, often, the holy month of Ramadan: Рамазон).
The first drafts of the Tajik Latin alphabet were without capitals,
and most examples of it before 1930 are entirely in lower case.
Punctuation. Full stops (periods), ellipses, commas, colons, and semi-
colons are used in sentences much as in other languages; in older
Perso-Arabic texts, these and other punctuation marks may appear
less frequently, or less systematically, than in Latin or Cyrillic
Tajik texts. For the comma as a decimal point, see 2.55.
In Cyrillic, commas are used to set off all subordinate clauses
(a rule imported from German via Polish). This usage is followed
even for Restrictive relative clauses, where (if the comma is to be
seen as marking a pause or change of intonation) it clashes with
the prosody of the linkage /-e:ki-/ (see 4.44). It is less regularly
used for this purpose in Perso-Arabic: 4 «I .... n L j_S I
jl 4—£ (	U IjjjlLj—uuj	—a j-la-j J J (jxiLjil cLjj <
с.|Ц1	jj .-S-jj-jLs agar bo rus-e musofaha
kunad, riyo’an li-n-nos dar nazar-i mardum dast-ai-ro bo sobune-ki
azfobrik-i rusi bar-omada-ast, me-Sust ‘if he shook hands with a
Russian, in public view he would hypocritically wash his hands
with soap that had come from the Russian factory’: here there is
no comma to interrupt the prosodic unit formed by the antecedent,
enclitic -e, and complementizer ki that form the link with the
Restrictive relative clause. (In examples below where a Perso-
Arabic transcription of an original Cyrillic sentence is supplied,
commas of the Russian sort will not necessarily be repeated.)
The dash (m-dash) is used frequently (as in Russian) to set off
a parenthesis (generally with spaces before and after it), but is
usually not repeated to close it: ба маркази Тодикистон —
Душанбе дар 4 соат расидем ‘we reached the capital of
Tajikistan—Dushanbe—in four hours’. It also serves to set off a
word or phrase in apposition, a gloss or explanatory supplement,
whether the copula is gapped or not: медмон... Шарифцон
махдум буда, мизбон — содиби хона Мулло Абдусалом...
будааст ‘the guest... was Sharifjon Makhdum, the host—(was)
the proprietor, Mullo Abdusalom’. In the next example it is used
to separate two names with different syntactic functions: падари
60
CHAPTER ONE
Гулнор — Рустам буд ‘Gulnor’s father was Rustam’. (See also
Quotation, below).
Quotation and dialogue. Citations of literary titles, ironic allusion, and
quotations set in the text, are usually enclosed in double quotes (of
the angular French kind, in Cyrillic): дар вакди «шамолхурй»
аз барг ва гулаш чой дам мекунанд JLo-ti" j jj
,< •. a (ji-LS j j_> j I ‘when people “catch a chill”
they brew a tea from its leaves and flowers’.
Dialogue beginning a new line is generally introduced by a
dash, and sometimes included between dashes, in place of quotation
marks, before the verb of saying; occasionally the verb of saying
may be sandwiched between dashes: ман, — гуфт, — ба шахр
намеравам	j $	.j-o ‘“I,” she said, “am
not going to town’”. (See further, 4.18.)
Incorporation of foreign scripts and special characters. There are
nowadays few typological impediments to mixing the full range
of Cyrillic, Perso-Arabic or Latin characters and signs in a Tajik
text; academic bibliographies are routinely listed in the script of
the original language. The reader of Soviet-era publications will
sometimes find unfamiliar bits of Russian-international usage, or
adaptations of Russian to Tajik usage.
The symbol № (‘No., Number’) is widely used before arabic
serial numbers. In Perso-Arabic Tajik texts of the 1920s, Western
arabic numerals were used more often than Oriental ones, e.g.,
1917 JI____«jl pes az sol-i 1917 ‘before [the year]...’ (see
further, 2.49). Roman numerals (upper case) were frequently
inserted into Cyrillic texts to denote chapter numbers, centuries,
etc. Where these were not available (e.g., on cheap typewriters),
similar-looking Cyrillic letters were substituted: к,арни УШ-ум
Л, a Jj-s <A Jj-S /qarni haStum/) ‘the eighth [VIII] century’,
Боби ХЦ (\Y <_>!_> /bobi duwozdahum/) ‘Chapter Х1Г.
In older typescripts (such as university publications up until the
1980s) other makeshift devices can be found, notably half-spaced
commas after the Russian letters к, x, and ч to simulate the hooks
of Tajik к,, X, and ч, since dedicated Tajik-alphabet typewriters
were not readily available.
CHAPTER TWO
MORPHOLOGY: NOMINALS
2.1	General Observations
Tajik Persian nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and numerals have no
grammatical inflections. Their relation to each other and function in
the sentence are indicated primarily by syntactic means such as word
order, prepositions, postpositions, and connective particles, and addition-
ally by intonation, punctuation, and lexical morphology. This description
of their morphology will necessarily repeat or allude to certain points
of phonology, syntax, and lexis; cross references will be given to the
appropriate paragraphs in other parts of the grammar where these features
are described more fully.
The Noun Phrase (NP) and similar composite units described below
adhere to a common principle, whether they are seen as syntactic,
morphological, or lexical units: When determiners or specifiers precede
a nominal, they are juxtaposed without any connector; when modifiers
follow a nominal they are joined to it by a connective particle (see,
e.g., the izofat, 2.10; Reflexive and Emphatic Pronouns, 2.32; the Com-
parative and Superlative, 2.42-43; Quantifiers, 2.45; various lexical
compounds, 5.7-9). This is a universal Persian feature, but the incidence
of any particular structure differs between Standard Persian and Tajik.
The question is further complucated by the influence of Turkic NP
structures, which are in many respects the converse of Persian ones.
NOUNS
2.2	Gender
There is no grammatical gender in Tajik, and natural gender is not
marked in native nouns. They may designate persons or animals of
62
CHAPTER TWO
either sex: тоник	‘(а/the) Tajik’ (male or female; by default
male); гов jl£ ’bull, cow’. Sex (or its irrelevance) may be distinguished
lexically: мург ‘fowl’, xypyc jj_i. ‘rooster, cock’, мокиён
jU£L> ‘hen’; гусфанд	‘sheep’, к,учк,ор ‘гат’,миш
(jhj л ‘ewe’. In the absence of specialized terms, male and female are
distinguished by one of the modifiers нар j_s ‘male’ or мода о al______a
‘female’, either preceding or following the noun: буз ‘goat’, нарбуз
‘billy goat’, модабуз ajL» ‘nanny goat’; хар-и нар j_A
‘male donkey’, хар-и мода a jU ^2. ‘female donkey’. These modifiers
are in fairly free distribution, but with some animal names either the
preposed or the postposed form is preferred: модагов t>jL> ‘cow’,
шер-и мода е>з(_о A ‘lioness’, butHappa-inep j . л 6 y, ‘lion’
(narra is a poetical variant of nar). If it follows the head noun, the
modifier is in iwfat construction (of Specification: 2.16).
For humans, a neutral form that by default entails masculine reference
(typically, ethnic and national names and traditional male occupations)
may be feminized by preposing it to the words зан j j ‘woman’ or
духтар j Л Sj ‘girl, young woman’: дехдонзан j j jl 3 ‘peasant
woman’; точдкдухтар j T < j -j.b ‘Tajik girl’ (see also 5.26). If
necessary, a male of the class may be specified by preposing the noun
мард in iwfat. мард-и рус j_>_□ ‘Russian (man)’. Truly neutral
roles and occupations may be specified for sex by the addition (in
iwfat) of mard or wn\ бемор-и мард jj________о jl___»__и ‘male patient’,
харидор-и зан j j ‘female purchaser, woman customer’.
Borrowed Arabic and Russian feminine nouns are used in context:
муаллим p.I«-« ‘teacher’, муаллима ‘female teacher’, олима
<1—Jl—c ‘(woman) scientist’, рак,к,оса <i____^L_3j ‘(female) dancer’,
студентка ‘(female) student’. Note толиба <i______JLL ‘schoolgirl, (fe-
male) student’; the male equivalent is талаба <i J U, cognate but in the
form of a “broken plural” (5.23), in which the Arabic feminine ending
plays a grammatical role without any relation to natural gender.
2.3	Gender and Age
Gender in children is distinguished by preposing as specifiers pisar
‘boy’ or duxtar ‘girl’ to the noun бана 4_____‘child’: писарбача
MORPHOLOGY: NOMINALS
63
‘(small) boy’, духтарбача <t	‘(little) girl’. (Note
that the simple noun pisar ‘boy’ contextually may mean ‘son’, and
duxtar may also mean ‘daughter’ or ‘older girl, maiden’.)
Similarly, the young of animals may be specified by combining the
generic noun with baca ‘child’: харбача a____=^_>j__a. ‘donkey foal’,
шербача <t j. j Л. ‘lion cub’. A few animals have lexical terms for
their young, e.g., чуча «Ua.I чуча «Ua.j_a. ‘chick, nestling’, гусола
‘calf’,той esjS, тойча ‘foal’,.
For human seniors there are the special terms пирамард (пирмард)
j_A_i ‘old man’ and пиразан (пирзан) j_±-i ‘old woman’; the
term кампир j_____j__j__»_$ also means ‘old woman’, and муйсафед
j j а ‘old man’ (lit. *white-hair[ed]’; see 5.8).
2.4	Number (1)
Nouns and pronouns have two numbers, singular and plural. So-called
mass nouns, by their nature, refer to collective or abstract entities and
do not normally form a plural; e.g., намак Л a \ ‘salt’, эътимод
jl__a rl ‘confidence’ (but see 2.6). Singular nouns are marked with
zero, plurals by the (stressed) suffixes -xo La- or -он jl- or, mostly
in the case of Arabic loanwords, one of several Arabic forms.
The suffix -xo La- is invariable in form and applicable to any class
of count noun: чиз-хо 1 ‘things’, писар-хо La j .cjj ‘boys’, acn-
XO I д j ! ‘horses’, мяъно-хо LaI a ‘ideas’, гуфта-хо L* 4 ' i
‘utterances, statements’. In Perso-Arabic script it may be written either
joined to the final consonant of the singular noun (if applicable) or
separately: La jLij \L^sl_ij ‘languages’; after final vocalic -h <i_- it is
always written separately.
The suffix -он jl- is more limited in application and less frequent,
especially in the spoken language; it is stylistically marked as literary
in register. It denotes, optionally, higher animals and humans: писар-он
jlj . ‘boys’, асп-он jl _> ,.,l ‘horses’, муаллим-он jl «1* « ‘teach-
ers’; paired parts of the body: лаб-он jl—J ‘lips’, даст-он jl " ...j
‘hands’, чашм-он jl a a-s ‘eyes’, etc. (a relic of the ancient Indo-
European dual number); and a few other inanimate referents in a poetical
context: сухан-он jLlS   ‘words’, дарахт-он jl—jj ‘trees’,
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CHAPTER TWO
кухсор-он jIjI—uj-Aj—S ‘highlands’, лолазор-он jljlj4_IV ‘tulip
fields’;ситора a jb_^‘star’, ситора- гон jlS jl~>... ‘stars’ (see next).
Variants of this suffix occur after vowels. After -a in an eligible
Persian word, it usually assumes the form -gon (the -g- resurfacing
from the Middle Persian ending of this form class; see 1.8): бачагон
jLS-a-j ‘children’ (sg. бача «иа-Д гузаштагон лл< ‘the depart-
ed’. Arabic loanwords in -a are often so pluralized: талабагон
jIjI In ‘students’, муаллимагон jLSLal» n ‘female teachers’ (for the
more usual муаллима-х,о La =.). Russian loans are occasionally
so pluralized in MLT: пионерка, -гон	j_i_> ‘girl
Pioneers’ (members of the Communist youth movement). Exceptionally,
the plural of ниё Lc. ‘forefather’ is ниёкон (cf. SP niagan jLSLc.),
and that of мижа ijj ‘eyelash’ is мижгон
After final -o, -u, or -й, a euphonic -y- often intervenes: по-ён
jLL ‘feet’, доно-ён jUCJj ‘wise men’, ростгу-ён jL...Ij
‘truthful persons’ (there is a singular variant ростгуй ...Iwhich
already carries a buffer y. Cyrillic spelling treats nouns ending in -й
similarly, after dropping the macron: эронй	‘Iranian’, pl.
эрониён jLl>Iгумрукчиён jI <j « < ‘customs officers’; see
1.12). Exceptions, in -u and -й, are бозу jjL ‘(fore)arm’, pl. бозувон
jljjL; oxy ‘gazelle’, pl. охувон jlj-лТ; хинду ‘Indian’,
pl. хиндувон \j>; and абру >1 ‘(eye)brow’, pl. абрувон
2.5	Number (2)
A plural suffix -ино I , from the spoken language, is used with
persons’ names or kinship terms in referring to family groups: добил-
ино l\_il J a ‘the Qobils, the Qobil family’, холам-ино I d dU.
‘my aunt’s family’—the suffix here being added to the pronominal
enclitic on the NP холам 4_ll_____A., a contraction of хола-ам ‘my
(maternal) aunt’.
Some Arabicate plural forms survive in literary or archaic usage.
(Feminine) suffixes in -от cul- (after a vowel, -дот Ы---) are
conventionally used for some inanimate and abstract words, including
some of Persian origin: хаёл-от <xiVUA ‘dreams, fantasies’, интихоб-
morphology: nominals
65
от ________2 isl ‘elections’; к,алъа <i—*12 ‘fortress’, pl. далъадот
cj! => * I а; дех ад дека «i_aj ‘village’, pl. дехот cl>Laj; навишта
4_~i ‘written, script’, pl. навиштадот cul______> “>__‘writings,
work(s)’. These connote collectives rather than individuated entities:
икдом-от cul—olj-21 ‘initiatives’, 6of-ot cuLcL ‘gardens, orchards’,
хайвон-от cuLIу >->. ‘the animal world, fauna’. The (masculine) suffix
in -ин j-j- is occasionally found with Arabic participles denoting
human males: муаллим-ин «1*»‘teachers’.
Arabic “broken plurals,” i.e., formed by an internal change to the
singular, also designate collective or other specialized senses of the
singular: олим f-JLx. ‘(religious) scholar’, pl. уламо I « I г ‘the (Mus-
lim) clergy’ (in the sense ‘scientists’, olim adds the usual pl. suffix
-on); хабар ‘report, news (item)’, pl. ахбор jLu-ll ‘news’. Like
the latter (and its English equivalent), a number of broken plurals have
been lexicalized with a singular meaning (see 5.23). The all-purpose
suffix -ho is always available to make the distinction: тараф-хо
L_$ ij_!= ‘sides, directions’, атроф <_slj_LI ‘environs; district’. Note
especially харф ‘(spoken) word, utterance; letter (of the alpha-
bet), written character’;харф-хо L^.a‘words, statements’, хуруф
‘written characters, script, alphabet’.
An Arabic dual form -айн - is used in formal language for a
few conventional pairs: волидайн jj_IIj ‘parents’, тарафайн
,3-12j-L донибайн jn.La.‘both sides, the two parties’.
2.6	Number (3)
Where there is a choice of plural forms, this may be determined by
phonology, semantics, or social considerations, sometimes in combin-
ation. Thus the animate/ human suffix -он jl- may be preferred over
the all-purpose -xo La- in order to show respect or in a more formal
context: хамватан-он-и азиз	‘dear fellow-country-
men’, падар-ону ниёкон-и мо U> jL£L_l1 j jIjJj ‘our fathers and
forefathers’. However, it cannot usually follow the vowel -а: ука-хо
La <l£ jl ‘younger brothers’, амма-хо La<i_^c ‘aunts’. Nor is it used to
pluralize Russian or “international” words: курсант-хо La.-A
‘cadets’, финхо La j2 ‘Finns’ (but see exceptions in -a, 2.2).
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CHAPTER TWO
Especially with participles in -a used as nouns (3.41, 3.43), -ho and
-on plurals may selectively imply inanimate or animate, or human,
referents: оянда-до La o jAjT ‘things to come; future events’, ояндагон
jLS а_ъТ ‘newcomers, future visitors’; фиристода-до La л d ". . ..j «
‘things sent, dispatches’, фиристодагон jl < d ~  j a ‘persons sent,
envoys’.
Plural forms (esp. in -ho) may be used to intensify a meaning,
sometimes of a mass noun or an adverb: об-до I_‘lots of water’,
хун-до I—a-S‘much blood’; аллакай ‘already, long ago’,
аллакай-до La <JI ‘a long time ago’; фикр-до мекард La
j______о ‘he thought hard’ (cf. fikr mekard ‘he thought’; and cf. the
Arabic plural afkor ‘[systematic] thought(s), ideas’, as in афкори омма
4_oLc. jKil ‘public opinion’).
Plurals in -ho or broken plurals may express approximation in time
or space: соат-хо-и хафт .r.i a ^1 ~i r L^, ‘about seven o’clock’ (соат
хафт oi д, cu-cl___oj ‘seven o’clock’, 2.54), баъдхо Laj_»_i ‘later,
afterwards’ (баъд j_*_i ‘after’), дар ин наздики-хо । о <j‘. j-J jj
‘shortly, any time now’ (наздикй 9 ‘nearness’; lit. ‘in these
proximities’; see further, 2.48, under Manner), дар ин до-до
LaI__a.: ‘hereabouts’ (ин до I_I \l____a. ‘this place, here’; see
further, 2.46).
A type or model is often pluralized in similes or expressions of
emulation, even with a singular antecedent: як духтар-е ба зебои-и
фириштагон	.nj-s	~ Aj ‘a girl as lovely as an
angel’ (lit., ‘angels’), либос-и гадоён пушида буд	q^L-J
j‘he was dressed in beggar’s clothes’ (pl., ‘beggars”).
In a collocation of related terms, the plural suffix is generally
added only to the last term: корхона-ю завод-до LajjI j j «оLAjLA
‘factories and plants’.
2.7	Definiteness and Specificity (1)
Tajik has no definite or indefinite articles as such, but nouns and noun
phrases do differ in sense between Definite (or defined: ‘the boy, the
boys’) and Indefinite (undefined: ‘a boy, (some) boys or other’). They
may also be contrasted as either Specific (‘a certain boy, certain boys’)
MORPHOLOGY: NOMINALS
67
or Non-Specific (i.e., generic: ‘(a) boy, boys in general’). How these
statuses are identified and marked in Tajik Persian depends on the
semantics of the NP and on its function in the sentence. Function is
expressed chiefly by syntactic means: word order, enclitics (mainly -e
and -po I j-), quasi-articles (як l£_i ‘one’; ин ‘this’, он jT
‘that’, камин 3 , n a ‘this (very)’, etc.), and prepositions or postposit-
ions. For a supplementary treatment of NP syntax, see 4.1.
Fig. 2.7 illustrates the possible forms of Non-Specific, Indefinite,
Specific, and Definite nouns, both singular and plural, as subjects or
direct objects in a sentence. (Accented syllables are shown.) The stem
form of a noun has two meanings, as shown in Rows 1 and 4.
In Row 1, the Non-Specific sense, the speaker focuses on the
concept or the generic referent, rather than a specific member of the
class or number of items. Thus it is the form taken by the subject of an
existential sentence: дар магазин газета хает? — не, газета нест
.г...«CLjJ-S - S с-u... а>	jj ‘are there newspapers
in the store?— No, there are no newspapers’; and by the complement
of an equational sentence: падар-хо-ямон дехдон буданд jj_j
j_> jUjij jLo_jLa‘our fathers were peasants’ (lit. ‘peasant’).
As the direct object, a Non-Specific noun does not require the
object marker-po I j-: китоб бихон jl L > цЦЛ ‘read a book’ (any
book, or books in general). It is the form used after numerals: се хона
<CiLk ‘three rooms’ (without a plural marker: Numerical NP, 2.50).
The plural occurs only to emphasize quantity or variety: мактуб-хо
менависад <••••	L$_ij ~X‘he writes lots of/ all kinds of letters’
(cf. фикр-хо мекард jj—he thought hard’, 2.4); as a
highly marked usage not quite analogous with the singular stem form,
this is included parenthetically in Fig. 2.7.
In Row 4, the Definite sense, the referent is “old information” to
both speaker and listener. It may have already been mentioned: кдшлок.
аз ин до хеле pox нест б1 О1 La. 3^1 jl jyl Л. a ‘the
village isn’t far from here’, or it is conventionally defined, for instance
as a proper noun or equivalent: бобо омад a_oT L>L ‘grandfather has
come’. A Definite count noun denoting a plural requires a plural marker
and, usually, plural verb agreement: дишлод-хо хеле pox нест-анд
6| j	I .<	‘the villages are not far’.
Fig. 2.7	Dehniteness and Specificity in Nouns
		Subject	 	Direct Object	 Sg.	Pl	Sg	Pl.
1. NON- SPEC- IFIC	писар	(писар-хб)	писар	(писар-хб) (U>^)	(L^) ‘a boy; boys’ (as distinct from, e.g., girls or men)
2. INDEF- INITE	писар-е	писар-хб-е	писар-е	писар-хб-е як пис^р(-е)	як писар-хб-е	як писар	як писар-хб-е (^?) (^?) ‘a boy, some boy (or other); boys, some boys (or other)’
3. SPEC- IFIC	писар-е	писар-хб-е	писар-е-ро	писар-хб-е-ро як писар	як писар-хб-е	як писар-е-ро	як писар-хб-е-ро (jjLbjuxxj	1 j (_5_>xux_1 (^_j)	1J	(xS-j) ‘a (certain) boy; (certain) boys (that I know of)’
4. DEFI- NITE	(ин) писар	(ин) писар-хб	(ин) писар-ро	(ин) писар-хб-ро ‘the boy; the boys (in question)’
CHAPTER TWO
morphology: nominals
69
A Definite noun as the direct object requires the enclitic -ro as direct
object marker: бобо-ро дидед?	IjL>Lj ‘did you see grand-
father?’ (2.17). Definiteness may be overtly marked by the addition of
a demonstrative determiner such as ин ‘this, these’, or the noun
may be modified by another noun or pronoun in izofat (2.13, 2.28).
2.8	Definiteness and Specificity (2)
Both the Indefinite noun or NP (Fig. 2.7, Row 2) and the Specific NP
(Row 3) make use of the enclitic -e and/ or the quasi-article як
X_>, ‘one; a/ an’, and each introduces new information. The crucial
difference is that the referent of the Indefinite NP is (ostensibly) new
to both the speaker and the listener, whereas that of the Specific NP is
signaled as being new information only to the listener. An Indefinite
NP may be made explicitly so by preposing one of the indefinite
determiners ягон or кадом(як) (. _i) ‘some — or other’
(2.36): ягон мард омад j_»T jLSl ‘some man (or other) came’,
кадом(як) зан(-е) дидам	j \jj (^_j) flj—S ‘I saw some
woman (or other)’. Otherwise, Indefinite NPs are distinguishable in
form only as direct objects —because the Specific NP must take the
object marker -ro.
An Indefinite referent is introduced for the first time to the listener;
it is not so much unknown to the speaker as unidentified or undefined
within the context—in practice this means that, with this formulation,
the speaker signals his inability or unwillingness to divulge more,
except to specify whether there is one of these or more than one: кас-е
омад  < ‘someone came/ has come’; як одамон-е омаданд
jJu____of _____ojT •<  ‘some people came/ have come’. An Indefinite
noun as direct object is not normally marked with -го: ман но-эхтиёти-е
карда, ба даст-и душман афтодам <_>	<_$! (_5_LI ~i -JLl
d Ы j а	‘I was careless, and fell into enemy hands’ (lit.,
‘having made a carelessness [i.e., some mistake or other], I fell...’; the
speaker may be well aware what his mistake was, but judges it
inappropriate or irrelevant to specify it—and conveys as much to his
listener by the Indefinite form of the noun).
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CHAPTER TWO
The Indefinite form often occurs in negative sentences, where English
uses ‘any’ or ‘no’: чиз-е нагуфтанд	_,г ‘they didn’t say
anything/ said nothing’, ман кор-е надорам; ту магар як кор-хо-е
дорй?	yi	j_o ‘I have nothing
to do; do you have some things to do?’ (lit. ‘one any tasks’). Note that
the focus here is on the likelihood of the activity, not on the nature of
the tasks; and that yak may qualify a plural NP (provided the items are
countable).
When a Non-Specific noun is modified by an adjective, it becomes
in the first instance an Indefinite noun: (як) китоб-и хуб-е бихон
jLk_i j-A <_.L1£ ‘read a good book/ some good book or other’;
as a complement, it may be pluralized: падар-хо-и мо дехкон-хо-и
кам-багал-е буданд и.1»	La	‘our fath-
ers were poor peasants’ (cf. 2.11).
A Specific NP constitutes information known to the speaker, but
introduced for the first time to the listener; by using this form, the
speaker signals his ability or willingness to give further information:
(як) китоб-и хуб-е-ро хондам lj	(^->) ‘I’ve
read a good book (—which I might now identify or describe for you, if
you show interest)’. It occupies a status between the Indefinite noun,
the referent of which is known to neither speaker nor listerer (or at
least is not their focus of concern), and that of the Definite noun,
which is known to both (2.7). In the sentence (як) хона-е оташ
заданд jLj j	‘they set fire to a house’, the focus is
on the activity; whereas in (як) хона-е-ро оташ заданд (< )
jSjJ I <Cil—L the actual object of the arson is equivalent to
яке аз хона-хо-ро I______________A. jl ‘one of the houses’; focus
shifts from an activity to a Specific object.
Once introduced, a Specific subject or object on subsequent mention
changes into a Definite one; thus, at the beginning of a story: як
кампир буд, ду писар дошт. Ана хамин кампир писар-и калон-
аш-ро пеш-и худ хонда... *Cif -OuLJjj jJ
...aaLlj^. jjA	I	j aS ‘there was an old woman
who had two sons. Now, this old woman summoned her elder son
and... ’.
morphology: nominals
71
2.9	Definiteness and Specificity (3)
The four-way scheme as presented in Fig. 2.7 is not to be taken as
completely transparent and absolutely binding. There are cases (partic-
ularly in the incidence of -ro with -e) where a context beyond the
immediate sentence dictates whether an Indefinite, or a Specific, NP is
intended. There is some leeway particularly in Numerical and Quantity
NPs (which do not use yak or -e; 2.45, 2.50): ман бисер китоб
хондам  .1 < jI _   jj-o ‘I’ve read a lot of books’ (Non-
Specific: ‘much of the class book') and ман бисёр китоб-х,о-ро
хондам I	‘I’ve read lots of books’ (Specific)
are essentially synonymous—as are the English translations. In як
тахта когаз-и калон-ро пур карда... навиштам j_c.L£ i л
»“ л.I j jyL-S ‘I filled a large sheet of paper (with my
writing)’, either the sheet was one of a pile and the phrase is thus
equivalent to a partitive phrase (‘one of the sheets of paper’, cf. 2.17),
or the written page is to be the focus of further comment.
The enclitic -ro has several other functions, besides that of direct
object marker (see 2.18). There is also a general tendency, especially
in spoken Tajik, for -ro to be attached as a direct object marker to
other than strictly Definite and Specific NPs: see the following two
sections.
IZOFAT AND -RO
2.10	The izofat Constructions: Common Features
The two most frequent types of noun phrase in Tajik are usually both
referred to by Western grammarians as the izofat construction (изофат
izu-sLbl, SP ezafe ‘annexation’). They are superficially similar,
and both must be understood in relation to Definiteness and Specificity
and the use of the enclitic -ro. However, they have distinct peculiarities
and will here be treated separately under the terms Adjectival izofat
and Nominal izofat.
In their simplest form these constructions link a modifier (respect-
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CHAPTER TWO
ively, an adjective or a noun) to a preceding head noun, by means of
an (unstressed) enclitic -i: духтар-и мард jj_a j ‘the man’s
daughter’ (Nominal), духтар-и зебо j '> A.S ‘the beautiful girl’
(Adjectival). They exhibit the same stress patterns, and the same
orthographic peculiarities in Cyrillic and Perso-Arabic scripts, as follows.
Orthography: Cyrillic. The enclitic izofat particle, in examples here
shown (in Cyrillic) as hyphenated with the preceding head noun, is in
practice always written as part of the head noun: духтари мард,
духтари зебо. The simple -и is also added to words (inc. plurals in
-ho) ending in a vowel: пахтай мо ‘our cotton’ (lit. ‘cotton of us’;
pronounced /paxtayi mo/; Nom.), суи гарбй /suyi garb!/ ‘the western
side’ (Adj.), гапхои бачахо /gaphoyi bacaho/ ‘the children’s con-
versations’ (Nom.).
When it is added to a noun ending in -й, the accent (macron) is
dropped: дустй ‘friendship’, Ьтдустии халкхо /diistiyi xalqho/ ‘the
friendship of peoples’ (Nom.). After the semi-consonant й, the latter is
normally replaced by и, pronounced /yi/, which serves for both the last
consonant of the head noun and the izofat enclitic: дуй /juy/ ‘stream,
channel, canal’, but ч,уи кухна /jiiyi kiihna/ ‘the old channel’ (Adj.).
Occasionally this final й is preserved: дуйи кухна.
Orthography: Arabic The izofat particle appears as after the vowels
/и/ and /й/ (the letter j vov): j j J	‘swift gazelle’ /ohu-yi
tezraw/ (Adj.) and /о/ (I alif):	?l3 ^1.all /alifbo-yi tojfk/ ‘the
Tajik alphabet’ (lit. ‘alphabet of the Tajik(s)’; Nom.), \ n Л. <
.x.iA ы,‘fierce enemies’ /dusmanhoyi sarsaxt/ (this sequence is most
commonly seen after a plural headnoun in -ho). Strictly speaking, is
only the consonantal carrier of the izofat particle, so for extra clarity
this may be written as the diacritic zer (see next); in older texts it may
also be encountered as a miniature (or its printed substitute, a hamza
₽; see further, 1.15).
After a consonant it is not usually written, but for clarity’s sake it
may be indicated as a short vowel sign (called zer) underneath the final
consonant of the head noun: /jiiyi kiihna/ <i	/duxtari mard/
/dehi naw/ aj ‘new village’; this practice is adopted in
examples here.
In the case of a final <i_- representing terminal -a, it may be shown
morphology: nominals
73
either as an independent^: Zxonayi mo/ L_a LsLi. ‘our house’, or as a
miniature^ (in printer’s practice, a hamza sign ₽ above the letter):
U <CiLk. The latter device is adopted here. (Note that neither this nor
the hamza may be used for the -i of the izofat particle after final
representing the consonant Zh/; in this case, the subscript sign zer may
be used as illustrated above: Zdehi naw/ y. ‘the new village’.)
There are examples in both types of izofat where the connective
particle is omitted in speech and writing (Mute izofat, 5.11).
2.11	Adjectival izofat
This construction, known to traditional Persian grammarians assifat-u
mawsuf ‘adjective and term described’, links an adjective (or adjective
phrase, or participle, or adverb/ adverbial phrase) to the noun or NP
that it modifies by means of an unstressed connective particle -i:
духтар-и зебо Lxuj j 5 ‘(the) beautiful girl’, даво-и нагз ^1 j_a
jiS ‘nice weather’, кишлок,до-и хароб туда «_
‘ruined villages’, руз-и баъд j-------*. jjj ‘the day after’. The two
components refer to the same entity; they may be seen as the subject
and complement of an underlying sentence involving the verb to be:
‘the girl is beautiful’, etc. As such it is quite different from a superficially
similar construction, the true or Nominal izofat (2.12-15).
Multiple adjectives of more or less equal weight may by joined by
the enclitic -y j- ‘and’: хона-и бузург-у нав j <_£ jJ-> LSLA ‘the
big new house’, or by a serial izofat. хона-и бузург-и нав
jj_>. Multiple adversative modifiers may also be joined by the
conjunction ё L ‘or’: дар зан-и рус ё тодид L_j j j j j j-*
 < -^l~ ‘each Russian or Tajik woman’.
The unmarked Adjectival izofat, by virtue of its being modified, is
a Definite NP. It cannot be either Non-Specific or Indefinite. It may be
made Specific by adding the enclitic -e to the end of the phrase, or the
quasi-article як to the beginning: равон-и савор-е
як давон-и савор _>lj jjlj 7 ‘a youth on horseback’. Yak is
preferred if the modifier ends in -Й t5-: як насос-и дастй
...л ^,,1 ‘a hand pump’. Plurals may also be made specific in
this way: (як) шадрдо-и бузург-е jJ-j	‘(some)
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CHAPTER TWO
large cities’.
The Split izofat. In more literary usage, the Specific enclitic -e may be
attached to the head noun or NP, in which case the izofat particle is not
used: цавон-е савор jl‘a youth on horseback’; аз руи
фармон- e таъч,илй ц 1 -ч »~ ^l—o j_a	jl ‘in response to an
urgent command’. This formulation, which will here be termed a Split
izofat, is preferred in a few common phrases, especially with the adjective
дигар ‘other’: чиз-е дигар j. ‘another thing, some-
thing else’ (2.33).
The Split izofat is not used for a Nominal izofat—except for that
of Specification, if the modifier is not a name (2.13).
The modifier may consist of a prepositional phrase: чашмон-и
пур аз ашк jl	‘eyes full of tears’, кутал-и {байни
Нораку Чормагзак} {^j—»_________оjLj. j j-ц..] J", < ‘the pass
between Norak (Nurek) and Chormaghzak’. It may be a participial
phrase that is in effect a reduced relative clause: мисли шахс-и {аз
шароб сархуш гашта} {«< ". л, <	и_>1 jl] a j. J*,
‘like someone drunk on wine’. Such prepositional-cum-participial
phrases may then be nested within a primary izofat phrase: як чиз-и
{аз ч.ои {номаълум} цахида баромадагй} нест jl} j_^
j *» [(^j-oIj-j m jJjuoL] ‘it isn’t something that has popped
up out of nowhere’ (lit. ‘...a thing having jumped out of an unknown
place’; see Conjunct verbs, 5.21.
Short prepositional phrases beginning with the preposition may
dispense with the izofat particle: шикор-и бо шох,ин L. jl < л
or шикор бо шохин	(_> ‘hawking, falconry’
(lit. ‘hunting with falcon’).
2.12 Nominal izofat (7)
The true izofat construction consists of a head noun or NP followed by
another noun or NP, or a pronoun, as modifier, joined by the unstressed
enclitic -i: духтар-и мард jj_a jlij ‘the man’s daughter’ (for ortho-
graphy and pronunciation, see 2.9). In contrast with the adjectival
izofat, the components refer to different entities (with the exception of
an izofat of Specification: see 2.16). Thus they may often be seen as
morphology: nominals
75
the subject (the modifier) and object (the head noun) of an underlying
sentence involving the verb ‘to have’: ‘the man has a daughter’, etc.;
the phrase expresses, e.g., the possession of the first referent by the
second, its affiliation to it, or a range of other relationships (examples,
2.13-15).
Multiple head nouns or modifiers, if jointly pertaining to their
syntactic partner, may be joined by the enclitic ва/ -у j- ‘and’: мам-
лакат ва хукумат-и мову шумо La j U,	j	‘our
common country and government’ (lit. ‘the country and government of
us and you’; cf. 2.27), or by the adversative conjunction ё Lj ‘or’:
каллапуш ё туфли-и бачагон >_i <^123 L> uh ‘the child-
ren’s hats or slippers’. Either constituent may be pluralized.
The Nominal izofat is in essence a Definite NP (Fig 2.7, Row 4),
since the purpose of qualifying a noun by its relation to another
substantive is to define it. As a direct object, it requires the (unstressed)
enclitic -ro: гапи бачахо-ро шунид a._/i I <_xS ‘she heard
the children’s conversation’ (see further, 2.15).
If a Nominal izofat (strictly speaking, the head noun of one) is to
be Non-Specific, the whole phrase may be preceded by the quasi-article
як <  ‘one’, or end with the enclitic -e : як дандон-и тилло/
дандон-и тилло-е	л1—L jlakaXyLL jla_ja.-k_j ‘a gold tooth’.
There are semantic restrictions on each of these options. Thus yak (lit.,
‘one’) may only be used for count nouns, not mass nouns—though it
may readily apply to a plural, bundling the items into a class or collective:
як шеър-и у j I j.* -£-> ‘a poem of his’, як шеърхо-и Хофиз
k_iL>. ujLa‘some poems of Hafiz’.
When the sense is that of possession or affiliation, and especially
when the modifier is a pronoun, -e may not be used; indeed, the simple
izofat formulation is normally replaced by a partitive construction: яке
аз духтархо-и (он) мард aj—o (j>f)	~ <а Jl ‘one of the
man’s daughters’ (see az, 2.19). This would also be a proper formulation
of the last example but one: яке аз шеърхо-и у jl ^Lajl
‘one of his poems’. To designate only the modifier as indefinite, it is
preceded by yak and/ or followed by -e: ободи-и як мамлакат ^aLT
.-<1 a - ‘the prosperity of a country’, поки-и вичдон-и одаме
aT JI.'-vj	‘the purity of a man’s conscience’.
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CHAPTER TWO
2.13 Nominal izofat (2)
The structure of a Nominal izofat is invariable, but the meanings of the
resulting phrases may vary considerably in accordance with the semantics
of the head noun and/ or modifier. The following examples, using
common nouns only, are typical, but do not exhaust the possibilities.
Affiliation: аъзохо-и партия <l_g .Ari ‘members of the party’
(cf. 5.23, Plurals).
Possession, metaphorical: the head noun sohib ‘possessor’ is a quasi-
prefix indicating the possession of a quality or distinction: сохиб-и
эътибор-и хос аст ^LA. jI .". <-1 ‘he enjoys an
excellent reputation’ (lit. ‘...is the possessor/ recipient of particular
regard’ (for sohib in true compounds, see 5.6).
Quality: ободи-и мамлакат I n____________о ‘the prosperity of the
country’, поки-и вичдон jlj j ‘purity of conscience’.
(The head is a predicative adjective in the underlying sentence,
e.g., ‘the country is prosperous’.)
Agency (modifier is the subject of an underlying sentence): пурсиш-и
пирамард jj—ao'1 the old man’s inquiry’, хучум-и
хаёлот	^.?-д> ‘assault by fantasies’.
Patient status (modifier is the object of an underlying sentence): ёд-и
ватан j-Lj jLj ‘remembering the homeland’, шикор-и oxy
3-aT jKxi ‘hunting gazelle, gazelle-hunt(ing)’.
Location, direction: дишлод-и кухистон jl T ... д>jjyLi-3 ‘moun-
tain village’, сафар-и Бухоро ljL-Ц. ‘journey to Bukhara,
the Bukhara trip’.
Time, place: даъват-и пагох oLS_. cuj_______cj ‘tomorrow’s invitation’,
аскар-и адиб ua-<- j5... r ‘the troops in the rear’.
Purpose, product: курта-и хоб j__________к Ljj___S ‘nightshirt’, завод-и
автомобил J-±->LoL.jl jjly ‘auto plant, car factory’.
Material, source: соат-и тилло yLL ‘gold watch’ (lit., ‘watch
of gold’), шир-и гов jl£ ‘cow’s milk’.
Specification: e.g., шахр-и Душанбе <t______/>2.jj j_$___i ‘the city (of)
Dushanbe’ (see 2.16).
morphology: nominals
77
2.14 Nominal izofat (3)
Besides common nouns, the following classes of substantives typically
modify the head noun in the ways illustrated.
Proper nouns. Affiliation, or appurtenance: писар-и Рустам j—
...j ‘son of Rustam, Rustam’s son’; пойтахт-и Тодикистон
jl . -U-. k л J j ‘the capital of Tajikistan’. Specification
(2.13, 2.16), when a title or generic noun is specified by name:
даноб-и К,осимй ~ ...Io u_il ’Mr. Qosimi’. (For titles, etc.,
which use or do not use izofat, see 5.22.)
Adjectives and Participles used as nouns. As broad a range as most
common nouns; e.g., characteristics: далери-и давон	—jJj
j Ij__a. ‘the youngster’s courage’; possession, attribution, or pro-
duction: китобхо-и нависанда	‘the writer’s
books’.
Infinitives and Action nouns. These are nominalizations of a broad
range of VPs or subordinate sentences, expressing, e.g., time of
activity: соат-и рафтан jAjj c^cL^’the hour of departure’ (lit.
‘...of going’), or purpose: фурсат-и ran задан ва чойнуши-ро
надоштанд jV. n.laJ. Ij jjJ	‘they
had no chance to talk and drink tea’ (lit. ‘...opportunity of talk
ing and tea-drinking’). See also 2.22, 4.15.
Pronominals. Mainly possession and affiliation: хдвли-и онко
I j 'J ‘their house’ (lit. ‘house of them’), дарс-и кй?	jj
‘whose lesson?’
Other kinds of NP. E.g., Numerical (see 2.50-51): зури-и дах. одам
lsjj j ‘the strength of ten men’.
2.15	Nominal izofat (4)
In a Nominal izofat, the same variety of substantives may occur as
head nouns.
Proper nouns. Personal names may have a following by-name, nickname,
or epithet: Ахмад-и калла л д -J ‘Bighead Ahmad’, Иван-и
мудаддас a * j jl ‘St. John’. In Classical literary usage, the
izofat alone was used to express the relation ‘son of’: Рустам-и
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CHAPTER TWO
Зол JIJ jCLuu j ‘Rustam son of Zal’.
Adjectives and Participles used as nouns. A broad range, including
affiliation: нобиноён-и район jUj J1 J J ' ‘the blind (per-
sons) of the region’. Active participles typically nominalize sen-
tences of the type ‘X does/ did Y’, the modifier denoting the
object: хонанда-и ашула	j—il ал \ M‘the singer of the
song’. Past participles may similarly nominalize a passive sentence,
‘Y is/ was done by X’, the modifier denoting the agent:
навишта-хо-и у jl « т ,7,^2, ‘his writings’ (see 3.43).
Infinitives and Action nouns. The infinitive or another verbal noun as
head may represent a noun of instance or product: сад задан-и
сузангар-у як задан-и охангар	j	jjj л
‘a hundred stitches of the seamstress equals one stroke of
the smith’ (prov., lit. ‘a hundred strikings... and one striking...’).
More typically, as an action noun, it nominalizes an adverbial
clause of time or manner, or a sentential complement to the main
clause (see 4.15): чуръат-и наздик шудан	сзЛ
‘the daring/ audacity to get close’; {ба он до рафтан}-и сайёхон
даркор jL£jj	[(jAjj La. jT <_}‘(the) tourists must go
there’ (lit. ‘tourists’ going there [is] necessary’).
Pronominals. Mainly to delimit or specify the pronoun’s referent:
кадом-и онхо?	‘which of them?’, худ-и ране з
u-S'j ‘the boss himself’ (2.32).
Other kinds of NP. A broad range, including Quantity NPs: чандин
мугул-и вай-ро куштанд л ' т Л. I Jc5J Js______________» ‘they
killed several of his Mongols’ (see 2.47, 2.52); бехтарин-и
филм-хо-ро тамошо накардаанд I .7,1 I j La >! _> 'a J -j ~ д;
xJ 63‘they did not see the best (one) of the films’ (superlative
as head of a Partitive NP: see 2.43).
2.16	Particular izofat Structures
Izofat NPs may by concatenated and/ or nested in various ways, most
of which will be apparent from the meanings of individual words. Note
the following examples and ways of conceptualizing their structures.
An Adjectival izofat may constitute either the head or the modifier,
morphology: nominals
79
or both, of a composite NP (typically, a possessive or affiliative izofat}.
лаб-и {духтар-и ширин}	<_J‘the sweet girl’s lip(s)’;
{лаб-и ширин-и} flyxTapj	<_J] ‘the girl’s sweet
lips’; {бозувон-и зурманд-и} {пахлавон-и чдвон} jljjl—i}
o'j1 (]_}{'''" jj j ‘the young hero’s strong arms’.
An Adjectival izofat where the head noun is a verbal action or
instance noun may represent an underlying adverb, in a nominalization
of a sentence such as ‘X does/ did Y in manner Z’: мутолиа-и дадид-и
матн e j . ал a « IIL a ‘close study of the text’. The underlying
object (here, the Definite noun matn ‘the text’) does not take -ro\
though if it is Indefinite or Specific, it may be preceded by yak and
optionally take the enclitic -e\ мутолиа-и дадид-и яд матн(-е)
с, "\д~ "	а *11 А ‘close study of а/ any text’.
In a serial Nominal izofat, the structure parallels that of a
straightforward right-branching translation using the ‘of’-genitive; using
left-branching ‘s’-genitives reverses the analysis, and a mixture of both
will complicate it: kitob-i {talaba-i {muallim}} ‘the book {of the student
{of the teacher}}’, more idiomatically, ‘{{the teacher’s} student}’s
book’; xonandaho-i {kitob-i {talaba-i {muallim}}} ‘the readers of the
teacher’s student’s book’.
The izofat of Specification is technically a Nominal izofat. However,
the modifier denotes the same entity as the head noun, so the phrase
may behave more like an Adjectival izofat. Thus мард-и деддон
jLLaj ‘the (male) farmer, peasant’ (cf. 2.3) may be made Indefinite or
Specific either by preposing yak or by a Split izofat (2. W f. yakmard-i
dehqon, mard-e dehqon ‘a (male) peasant’ (but not *mard-i dehqon-e).
In the case of phrases like пешоянд-и аз jl	‘the preposition
at (i.e., a unique abstraction), and шадр-и Душанбе jj j ц Л.
‘the city (of) Dushanbe’ (i.e., a name) the question does not normally
arise, since these are categorically Definite.
2.17	The Enclitic -ro
The (unstressed) enclitic -po I (which has also been called a post-
position) is placed at the end of the NP, after any and all modifiers,
plural suffixes, and the Specific marker -e if present: дастхат-до-и
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CHAPTER TWO
камёб-е-ро дуздида бурданд	< ^ .1
j-ijj-j ‘they made off with some rare manuscripts’. Colloquial and
dialect forms (often reproduced in literature) are /-га/, /-а/, /-ya/ (this
last after a vowel: куза-я овардам <_> ajj_______£ ‘I brought the
jug’). The overall function of -ro in Tajik (as that of -rd in SP) is to
foreground a NP. In the modern language this function is manifested
chiefly as a marker of the direct object where this is Definite or Specific
(see Fig. 2.7).
Certain substantives qualify semantically as Definite; i.e., as direct
objects they always require-ro.
Proper nouns: Хасан ва Ахмаду Рахим-ро мешиносам j j
л I j ‘1 know Hasan, Ahmad and Rahim’.
Personal, reflexive, and demonstrative pronouns: онхо-ро надидам
I j LpT ‘I didn’t see those/ them’, у худ-ро намешиносад
IjA jfhe doesn’t know himself’ (2.32).
Numbers, as abstract entities: пандох-ро ба ду так,сим кунед
.и.аТ jj	I j jLxIj ‘divide fifty by two’ (2.51).
Action nouns: чойкаши-ро фаромуш кард
j‘he forgot to pour the tea’ (‘...the tea-pouring’).
Infinitives (of composite verbs, or in the sense ‘how to —’): чой
кашидан-ро фаромуш кард j	Ilj j	‘he
forgot to pour the tea’; мард-и кдпдароз на рафтан-ро медонист,
на нишастан-ро с,.... 'dj I J(j~ '<>j <_s jl jjj______3 jj__о
I j j 3 ... .».~i‘the tall man knew neither how to walk nor how to sit/
could neither walk straight nor sit properly’, хондан-ро сол-и
гузашта тамом карда будам	<_S Л.j. JL^.1 j jxll
ojjJS ‘I had completed reading/ learning to read in the pre-
vious year’.
However, infinitives that are the objects of common modal
verbs (such asxostan, tavonistan, giriftarr. see 4.22-23,4.25) behave
as Non-Specific nouns and do not take -ro: у давидан гирифт
(3 jj jl ‘he began to run’.
Other NPs are Definite by virtue of narrative context or speaker’s
intent. Thus the following NP types (if not containing yak or -e) are
grammatically Definite, and require -ro if they are direct objects.
Adjectival izofaf. мошин-и нав-ро фурухт clxS.s I
MORPHOLOGY: nominals
81
‘he sold the new car’.
Nominal izofat. халта-и пирамард-ро кушод jl Ia~l<
‘he opened the old man’s sack’.
A noun modified by a pronoun (independent or enclitic): фарзанд-и
худ-ро мезанад I jjj-A s ‘he beats his child’, пул-ат-ро
гир	‘take your money’.
A noun preceded by a determiner (demonstrative or pronominal
adjective, superlative, ordinal number): ин харфхо-ро назан
—Кадом харфхо-ро? S I jUbcj- jjjJ I jLbujj_>l
‘don’t say that’ (lit. ‘these words’) —‘What?’ (‘which words?’),
хубтарин тут-ро вай хурдааст oj
ца.1 ‘he ate the best mulberries’, у аввалин рубои-ро гуфтааст
duml <CL1S lJurcLj jl jl‘he composed the first ruba’i’.
The antecedent of a Restrictive Relative clause (see 4.44): зан-е-ро
ки дар хона даромад намешиносам <lsI_____________a. jj 4__S
p ...I ~i A j_oT jj‘I do not know the woman who came into the
room’.
Indefinite or Specific NPs both have the quasi-article yak and/ or the
enclitic -e. As direct object, an Indefinite NP (‘some — or other, any
(at all)’) does not usually take -ro: ман кас-е надидам
‘I didn’t see anyone’. A Specific NP, however (‘a (certain) —,
some —, any (of them)’), may be determined as such by a specifying
phrase such as a Partitive (which selects an individual, even if unknown,
from a specified group): ман {хеч як-е аз онхо}-ро надидм
{Ijl (рТ jl ~ д>] ‘1 didn’t see any of them’, {як хикоя-и
y}-po хондаам	Ijjl	‘I have read a story of his’,
имруз ягон одам-атон-ро назд-и ман фиристонед jLS-j =>1
  j_s З-а jJS I j jCLajT ‘Send one of your men to me today’ (for
yagon see 2.36). Otherwise the broader context or the speaker’s intention
may so determine it: e.g., не, кас-е-ро надидам I jS
‘No, I didn’t see anyone’, said in answer to a specific query such as
шумо он 40 ки-ро дидед? *? IJl/ * > '*> whom did you
see there?’
Neither Non-Specific nor Definite nouns necessarily have a marker
themselves. As direct object, a Definite noun, if so intended by the
speaker, is distinguished from a Non-Specific noun by the enclitic -ro:
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CHAPTER TWO
об биёр jl—j_> <_J ‘bring (some) water’, but об-ро биёр ‘bring the
water’ (i.e, that has already been mentioned, poured, etc.).
2.18	Other Uses of-to
In addition to marking the Specific or Definite direct object of a verb,
-ro has several other uses in elevated literary language and in colloquial
and dialect usage. These may all be seen as directing focus on a particular
constituent of a sentence, in which the grammar is otherwise clear
Thus -ro may even mark what is technically the subject of a passive
sentence, since it is semantically the object and the focus of the activity
postulated, whereas the agent is unimportant: офтоб-ро бо доман
пушида намешавад jал _i j-ola L I j<_uL3_aT ‘the sun
cannot be hidden by/ draped in a skirt’ (prov.).
Certain adjectives implying a relationship may trigger the enclitic
-ro in lieu of another adposition. Thus the idiom пазмон шудан
(За__i (31_a j_> ‘to miss, long for’, despite its intransitive appearance
(adjective and copula, lit. ‘to become sad, regretful’), appears to treat
the source of the emotion as a direct object: шумо-ро хеле пазмон
шудам j»a_i jL-oJj ^1  < I ‘I miss you a lot’ (past tense of
‘become’, equivalent to present tense of the resulting state; see 4.24); у
рафикон-аш-ро пазмон шуда буд jj_> аа-4. jLojj I	jl
‘he missed his friends’. A more literary construction places the adjective
in izofat with the object of affection: онхо пазмон-и ватан шуда
буданд j_j й	(3-Lj jLqJ-j Lj-LT ‘they missed their homeland’.
Similarly, the adjective омода a jLoT ‘ready, prepared’ marks the event
prepared for either with -ro or as the modifier of a nominal izofaf.
бало-и се-юм-ро омода бошем pj xT.L. ajL-oT	‘let us
be prepared for a third catastrophe’; у омода-и кор буд jK ajLJ jl
jj_> ‘he was ready for work’ (cf. tayyor, 2.41).
The enclitic -ro may replace the usual preposition 6a (cf. 2.19)
to mark the indirect object: маро [ман-ро] рузе хикоят кард бобо
L>L> jj__$	J<-> lj_________о ‘grandpa told me (a story) one day’.
Рахим-ро гуфтанд, ки берун барояд
j_>T‘they told Rahim to come out’, хонахо-ро харорат мебахшад
л л, k , n j-s. I jLa<oLL ‘it heats the houses’ (lit. ‘provides heat
morphology: nominals
83
to/ for [-ro] the houses’).
Even where directional prepositions are expected after intransitive
verbs (see 2.19), -ro may appear in modern literature: даста-и кух,-
навардон-и мо кух,-ро ба осонй баромада... L>	а „.<
I‘our team of climbers reached the summit
easily...’ (for ba or bar kith, ‘came up on(to) the mountain’); мо соат-и
се-и шаб дарьё-ро гузашта.......<i " ЛА< IjLjj у -	U>
‘we crossed the river at three o’clock in the morning, and...’ (for аг
daryo ‘passed across the river’).
Colloquially, it may supplement other prepositional phrases: барон
ки-ро? -Барой ман-а	j_i ‘for whom? —For
me’; а [аз] хандидан-а мурдем (= j_______» I jjay' ’**» j1) ‘we died
laughing’ (lit. ‘...from laughing’, cf. аг, 2.19).
In elevated style, -ro may mark varieties of ethic dative: Лутфиев-ро
аъзо-и бадан... ларза меояд	___cl lj. a L I
j-J _i a ‘Lutfiev’s limbs... start to tremble’ (lit. ‘to L. the limbs of his
body...(be)come a-tremble’), Ёдгор-ро умргузаронй сахт буд
..-I \	^1	j—a_c I j jl_SjL ‘for Yodgor (getting through) life
was hard/ Y. had a hard life’, Темурмалик-ро ак,ида-и он буд, ки...
jl а л.. .-I r I j ^J_oj4j_aj‘Temurmalik thought that...’ (lit. ‘to
T. was the belief that...’), касе-ро ёро-и наздик шудан набуд
jj-i2i	A	‘nobody dared approach’ (lit. ‘to a
person there was not the courage to go near’, i.e., nobody had the
courage...).
In Northern dialects of Tajik, a construction using an attributive
possessive -ro widely replaces the Persian type of izofaf. ман-а
писар-ам j—«(_L_o ‘my son’, муаллим-а китоб-аш <i JLa a
‘the teacher’s book’, Зайдулло-ра палинко-ш пеш-и усто
овардам I A _>_i I < AI _<	‘1 took Zaydullo’s
shoes to the cobbler’s’—here the definite direct object is not marked
with -ro. (The model for this seems to be the equivalent Uzbek NP
type, muallim-ning kitob-i, lit. ‘of-the-teacher his-book’.)
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ADPOSITIONS
2.19	Prepositions: Simple
The remaining spatial, temporal and modal relations of the NP are
expressed by means of prepositions, prepositional phrases, and
postpositions. There are some seven or eight morphological kinds of
preposition and prepositional phrase, ranging from single words through
reduplications and combinations with and without izofar, some are
unique lexical items, others are also adverbs, nouns, or conjunctions,
and many of them can be adapted as adverbial phrases (2.48) and
subordinating conjunctions (4.28,4.33-34).
The eight simple prepositions are monosyllables, unique lexical
items that are placed before the NP without further modification. They
are grammatically distinct in that they do not combine with the
pronominal enclitics (2.28-29).
аз j I ‘from, through, across’ (directional, locational), also ‘than’ in
comparison (2.42): аз хона берун рафт cu-Sj j «llLA jl
‘he left/ went out of the house’, аз даре гузаштанд Ljjj jl
j-ks______xij-2 ‘they crossed (over) the river’; паранда-е аз тиреза
парида даромад aj_>j_i ajjj-yk jl a ‘a bird flew
in through the window’, дудой аз дуст jj JI
‘separation from one’s friend’, халосй аз март jl
‘rescue/ being saved from death’. Temporal: аз сол-и гузашта
J Luu JI ‘from/ since last year’.
Az denotes the material or source of manufacture: аз чуб сохта
шудааст	 ..I aj_i <i ~ <1 ... JI ‘it is made of/ from wood’.
After verbs expressing privations or emotions, az introduces the
source or cause: аз гуруснагй (ташнагй) мурда истода будем
j_> а J I ajj-о (ц < ~iЛ.~) о \ jl ‘we were dying of
hunger (thirst)’; аз торикй метарсад	jl ‘he
is afraid of/ fears the dark’; аз у хеле рандидем	—k jl jl
, , < . '.Jwe were greatly offended by him/ took great offence at
his actions’; аз хурсандй к,ариб девона шудам	jl
‘1 nearly went crazy with joy’; аз ман хаво-
тир нашавед j_>j	JI ‘Don’t worry about me’.
morphology: nominals
85
Az helps to form Partitive phrases, inserted between a singular
Specific noun or pronoun and the requisite plural: як-е аз он-до
LajT jl ‘one of them’, баъз-е аз донишмандон мегуянд...
... хЬ jj « jbi л 'Jj jl lA » i ‘some scientists say...’, руз-е
аз руз-до-и рамазон jl .A ^Lbjjj JI ‘(on) one of
the days of Ramadan, one day during Ramadan’. A predicative
Partitive phrase may begin with az, eliding the pronominal: вай
аз дарвишон-и дадидй аст ei-uJ _i a.-s	Jl ‘he
is [one] of the true dervishes/ a true dervish’ (cf. the predicative
possessive construction az on-i, 2.28). It combines with думла
4.1«->‘whole, ensemble’ in partitive idioms: аз думла-и дозирон
дамсар-и раис буд jj j... л a jljl ‘among
those present was the chairman’s spouse’; вай аз думла-и
шоирон-и анъанавй ба шумор меравад jijxLi Jl
jjj-x-a jLa-j. । (_5j-L»_Lc ‘he counts as one of/ belongs in the ranks
of the traditional poets’; and, in two different constructions, with
дабил	‘sort, class, type’: аз дабил-и он падарон мебош-
ад, ки....< хЛЬ^ (jl jXj qT J i i t jI ‘he is one of those
fathers who...’; аз ин дабил сухандо-ро бисер шунидам jl
з j \  п jl _1 j I jt (] '1 Ч J-x-La (J-.I ‘I’ve heard a lot of this kind
of talk’.
After verbs meaning ‘to hold, seize’ an object, az means ‘by’ a
part of the thing or person held: аз даст-ам/ аз даст-и ман
гирифт cu-ij___S ф-о хх jl \jx3_____х jI ‘he took hold of my
hand’, бо як хез аз ду бозу-ям нигод-дошт jl j _ < L
cj-iljjJL jj ‘with one bound he seized me by both (my)
arms’; аз риш-и дароз-аш педонда гирифтам Jl
»"	< s.i'J (ji Jl jj ‘I grabbed him by his long beard and
twisted [it]’.
Az may combine with to Li ‘(up) to’ (see below) to compile an
inclusive or contrastive list: аз бада-до-и мактабдон то одсадол
дар ду тараф-и кудае... саф ороста ,jlл	jl
«1" ...I jT	'АА jj jJ a in “al L ‘from children of school
age to greybeards [were] lined up on both sides of the street’; the
NP governed by az may be followed by a participial coordinate,
either sar Suda or girifia ‘starting (from/ with)’: аз муллодо-и
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кухна гирифта/ cap шуда то машкобхо хам хастанд Jl
л'.'...	L^_il<s,7. о Ll ojX j-X\ <ХЬу£ «t ^Ub^Lo ‘there are
[all sorts] from old mullahs to water-carriers’.
Other idioms involving az are: пур аз JI j_> ‘full of’, аз -
махрум будан/ шудан/ мондан \jj_X \ё<9-? f * - J1
jaJ о ‘to be deprived of’, аз кор-е боздоштан	—£ JI
j- Л.1 tjl .‘ro stop doing s.t.’, e.g., аз тамоку кашидан боздошт
.t.lyjl  j	Jl‘he stopped smoking’, ин калима аз
як исм-у як пешоянд иборат аст/ ...иборат аст аз як
исм-у як пешоянд X-JjjXx-i Xj j Ху jl <-------------------X£ j_J
XyTJiyy X j^l X Jl oX ojX... VxX ojX ‘this
word consists of/ comprises a noun and a prefix’ (lit. ‘is an expression
of’); аз ухда-и кор-е/ вазифа-е баромадан VsjX а.х $ с jl
j, j_aT_>j ^1 < i ; kj ‘to carry out a charge, fulfill a responsibility,
rise to the occasion’: мардум аз ухда-и корхо-и бузург баромада
тавонистанд а'Г>	jJ-j ^LbjLS jl
‘the people were able to shoulder great responsibilities’.
Variants to be encountered are, in poetry, зи J; in Northern
dialects, /a/; in Central and Southern dialects, /ау/: ай Душанбе
умадум (Central) ‘I’ve come from Dushanbe’.
6a <_> ‘to’ (direction, goal, usually with the presumption of arrival): 6a
он до X jf 4_> ‘to that place, there (thither)’, ба дишлод-и худ
баргашта рафт д ~ лХj_j jjA jyLr. a <y ‘he went back to
his own village’. Colloquially, ba may be omitted in common
directional phrases: у хона/ шахр/ пахтазор рафтааст Д
...I << ". aj jlj< k . d л. \<Ci(X ‘he went home/ to town/ to
the cotton field’. ‘To’ (dative, indirect object): ба мо на карфе
гуфту на чизе дод jlj ^J-y-a X j сХХ	X l_a <_> ‘he
neither spoke to us nor gave us anything’; also with the verbs (6a
-) нигох кардан oIXs (- <_.) ‘to look (at)’, (ба -) гуш
додан/ кардан Jjj-S \3jlj	j-S (- <ш) ‘to listen (to)’. ‘In’ (a
medium): ба (забон-и) тодикй ran зан ^X	(3L1J)
jj ‘speak (in) Tajik’; китоб-и ман ба чоп даромад j_o l_.LX
j-aTjj <_.X д_> ‘my book has been printed/ come out in print’.
‘In, within’ (time limit): рох-и дароз-ро ба чандин дадида
зер кард j _>yj	а л Зу	<u I j jl jj al j ‘he finished the
morphology: nominals
87
long trip in a few minutes’, ба як хафта <i__S__La A <_> ‘in a
week, in one week’s time’. Ba introduces the cause of an emotional
reaction: ман ба ин хол таадуб кардам *"> Jl^. j-o
A ‘I was surprised at this situation’, and the activity or quality
by which one is known, judged, etc.: ба нозиракй машхур аст
jj д Л, n jLj <_i ‘he is notorious for stupidity’, вай-ро
ба ката айбдор карданд jSjjl,\ ? _> r J', a I ‘they
charged him with murder’. It denotes the underlying object in
some nominalized VPs: мухаббат ба ватан j <!_	»
‘love of/ for the homeland’, шиносой ба шахр ____________ ! ’> *
j А Л ‘familiarity with the city’.
Before a dependent infinitive, ba may denote the purpose of
the action of the main verb (cf. baro-i, 2.20): ба овардан-и
ошно-яш рафта-аст cj_^I <t A-e1-1 A JJjjT A ‘he has
gone to fetch his acquaintance’. It may replace az after a verb of
apology: ба гунок-и худ узр ме-хост А________с jj___L alAS <Ui
cl। ..JA c№° ‘he asked pardon for his sin’.
In combination with abstract nouns of quality, ba forms
adverbials: ба осонй A1_____A <_> \A'____“A ‘with ease, easily’
(2.48).	Ba is frequently used to form complex prepositions and
prepositional phrases (2.21-23).
In Perso-Arabic script, ba may be joined to the word it precedes,
unless this would entail ambiguity or difficulty in reading; then it
is written separately as <_>: thus <_aj_U ? ba taraf-i ‘toward’,
jjlj-jL ba Eran ‘to Iran’, JU ba on ‘to it’, but <i_i ba vay ‘to
him/ her’ (cf. ‘smell’), c, o. ... ba bist ‘to/ at twenty’. In
current usage it is mostly written separately.
бар j_> ‘(up)on, on top of, onto’ (locative, directional): бар кух барф
буд а5-> <_sj_> aA j_i ‘there was snow on the mountain’, бар no
истод J ~i ..I jI L_i _>_> ‘she got to her feet, stood up(right)’, он-ро
бар замин зад j-д e J	IjJ>T ‘he dashed it on the ground’,
воиз бар минбар истода буд j&jl~>... jl A* j_> Ac I j ‘the
preacher stood on the rostrum’.
Metaphorically and idiomatically: март бар судхур! j_>
! jj-Lc‘death to the usurer!’, бар тан-и ман дома-и бухорй
буд jj_> (_gjl Ai 5_«Ц. (З-о A j-1 ‘I was wearing a Bukharan
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robe’ (lit., ‘on my body was...’). Bar is used (mainly in elevated
style) after verbs expressing imposition, domination, munificence
and the like: бар камбагалон ин хама озор намудан!
3-o.j jl jT <t_oJb jyl * i n<‘to injure the poor so greatly!’; so
likewise after дастдарозй кардан Jjj—£	jj cu-luJ ‘to op-
press, bully’, галаба кардан j—S 4 J_c. ‘to overcome’, бах-
шудан/ бахшой- -^1.5. \ i\ j  * 4 ; ‘to bestow, grant’.
бе (j-j ‘without’ is not restricted in Tajik, as it is in Standard Persian,
to forming adjectives and adverbs (cf. 5.6): бе музд -------о
‘without pay’, бе парашют паридан-аш
‘his jumping without a parachute’, бе вай бисер гирих-хо-и
хаёту зиндаги-ро кушодан амр-и мухол аст jl j
-^1 Jl	j ajLbfc‘without
him, it is impossible to solve many of life’s problems’, бе ист ва
бе дамгирй танбура-навозй мекард	j >1
jj<  ~	j \ л jj ; ‘he played the tanbura without pause or
break’ (lit. ‘without stopping and resting’). Such multiple objects
of the preposition may also be joined after a single be: бе хеч
гапу калоча <Ca.yL£j	gj a ‘without any ado’, бе падару
модар мондам ^jjLo jjl_o j jj_i ‘I was left without father
or [lit. ‘and’] mother’, (cf. bidun-i, 2.21).
6o Li ‘with’ (comitative, instrumental; cf. qati, 2.20; hamroh, 2.21):
бо як рафид-и худ... рафтагор-и сайр гардида... 1_>
...ej-ijj-S j -   jl<~ aj .-.Jj-A J - ° j ‘with a friend of his... he
set out on a tour and...’, бо шикам-и гурусна хоб рафт L
cj-Jj < '  -j ‘he went to sleep hungry’ (lit. ‘with hungry
stomach’). In мубориза бо [душман] [j-o-ij] L a J jLu ‘com-
bat with the enemy, the fight against disease, etc.’ it means ‘against’.
Bo is generally used to introduce the indirect object with verbs of
speaking: бо кас-е ran задан/ сухбат кардан/ гуфтугуй
кардан	а < \jj\jjJ	L ‘to
talk to/ speak to/ chat with s.o.’
Instrumental: бо таъсир-и барфу борон j j _> ..fa L>
.jljL ‘with/ under the effect of wind and rain’, бо бодбезак
худ-ро бод мекард а—a jU	uSjjjU L. ‘he fanned
himself with a fan’, бо рох-и Самарканд XLSj n ... 61 j L ‘via
morphology: nominals
89
Samarkand’, бо мактуб ба ощо хабар дод ки... <_uj » L>
.jlj j ' A. Lpu ‘he informed them by letter that...’, бештар
бо фурухтан-и мошинхо-и чокдузй машгул буд L j ~ л,  
jj_> Jj » Л. n	^4 j_ л,| л JAJw>_js‘he was mostly
engaged in/ busy selling sewing machines’ (lit. ‘with the selling
of...’).
Followed by an infinitive (if not qualified by an adverb, like
the previous example), bo expresses a simultaneous action or
immediate result: бо гирифтан-и ин хат шод шудам 1_>
i jl_i L A ^1	__s‘as soon as I got this note, I was
happy’, бо хурдан-и ин об, касал шуд <_J	___A. L>
л л, J ... < ‘on drinking this water, he became sick’ (cf. barobar,
2.24. For bo in Concessive constructions, see 2.22 and 4.34).
дар jj (frequently /da/ in dialects) ‘in, at’ (locative, temporal): дар
хона нест -.... у, <C>Lk. jj ‘he is not in the house/ at home’, дар
сол-и оянда a j_bT JLu jj ‘in the coming year/ next year’. Like
ba, it may be omitted in common adverbial phrases: (дар) сол-и
гузашта (ба) Тошканд рафта будам (<->) 4 А Л. j	JLu (_,□)
j ,> '< л.1~. ‘last year I went to Tashkent’.
Dar is an all-purpose locative, which the translation ‘in’ does
not always fit: дар харак нишаста буд jj_i < ">
‘she was sitting on the bench’, дар cap ток,й дошт ва дар по
кафш ° < L j л.1л j ... ‘he had a skullcap on
his head and shoes on his feet’, дар як тараф «_sj_l= 4L jj ‘on
one side’, дар xap 40 L jA jj ‘everywhere’, дар шаб <_хЛ jj
‘at night’.
Colloquially, it may express a personal, temporary locative of
the type chez moi, bei uns: дар ман пул нест Jj—> J—» jj
.'.‘I have no money (on me)’, дар мо хосилот нагз мешав-
ад jj л, . »	La jj ‘we’ll have a good harvest’ (lit.,
‘in us the harvest is becoming good’).
Dar introduces the field of activity or aspect of an ensemble in
focus: дар к,олибофй мапнул-анд 3. i « ^U^Li jj
‘they engage in carpet-weaving’ (also withfeo, below), дар касбу
кор бояд хамчун дар бузкашй кушиш кард jK j jj
,7.j < л, ; jj	‘in business one must
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strive as hard as in buzkashi’,1 дар синну сол аз хама калонтар
аст «xj-cuI >LyL 4-о-л jl J Lu j (j-uu j j ‘he is senior to everyone’
(lit. ‘...in age greater than...’), ин монандй... дар чист? дар
хамин аст, ки........<£	jj *?.- jj ...^LLU
‘in what does this similarity consist? It lies in the fact that...’. In
similar metaphors, dar may follow appropriate verbal nouns:
иштирок дар jj uSIj_______3___il ‘participation in’, мудохила дар
jj <lL.Ij_o ‘interference in’.
to L ‘up to, as far as, until’ (locative, temporal): мо to Норак
пиёда рафтем онгох дам гирифтем > _ ~ ° j ojL_i L L
f ~ aj_S	‘we walked as far as Norak, then rested’, аз
тирамох то бахор кор мекард jLS jl о.. L *1 jl
jj___S ‘he worked from fall until spring’, кишлокхо - кад-кади
pox то хеле дурихо пахн шудаанд L *lj ...I д tyl Л. g
Ll jj^-i ^li A. ‘the villages... stretched all along the
road for miles and miles’ (lit., ‘...up to very great distances’). To
may cumulate with ba: кампир то ба берун-и хона-аш уро
гусел кард jJ i  I jjl ^ilcslA *4 j ‘the
old woman saw him out’ (lit. ‘accompanied him as far as to the
outside of her house’). Idiomatically: фарк-и суф то шохи-ро
намедонистам >"> 'ilj^y-Li I	L L,‘I couldn’t
tell wool from silk/ the difference between wool and silk’. To may
also introduce the standard in comparative clauses (2.42; for to as
a conjunction, see 4.29).
чун ‘like, as’ (comparative): чун ту кас-е пест  < j^a.
du. .ij ‘there is no one like you’; шаб куча-хо чун руз-и рав-
шан дурахшон буд jULAjj j-ijj J3J Jj^a.
‘at night the streets were as bright as day’ (‘shining like
bright day’); бачагон чун гурух-и гундишкон ки аз калхот
мегурехта бошанд, якбора аз до-яшон даста ба тараф-и
дар давиданд jl <£ jK j. ?Jl
Lid—ijJ	In i 4 i < и Jj I Л| I La. jl л I 1 < 1' '~.l t d A
‘the children, like a flock of sparrows fleeing from a kite,
immediately jumped up from their places and ran toward the door’.
Cun is mainly literary in this usage; cf. monand-i and misl-i
1 A team game played on horseback, for the possession of a decapitated calf.
morphology: nominals
91
(2.21), and barin (2.23). It has a poetical variant, чу j-a.. (Most
traditional European and Tajik grammarians, following the model
of Latin, German, or Russian, count cun not as a preposition, but
only a conjunction; however, its distinct meaning and syntax as
illustrated warrant its inclusion here. For the conjunction, see 4.26.)
2.20 Prepositions: Derived
The following prepositions are likewise simply juxtaposed to the NP,
but are not unique, in that they derive from or combine other words:
барон j_j ‘for’ (benefactive, purposive; cf. bahr-i, 2.21); in origin,
ba-ro-i, connected with the dative function of -ro- (2.18) and still
transparently in izofat. барон чй?	‘what for? why?’,
ин дадя-ро барон тагои-ам харида будам ^Ij-j I ла
э-i	‘I bought this present for my uncle’. A more
formal variant is аз барон jl.
Preceding an infinitive or other action noun, baroi forms a
nominalized purpose clause (cf. ba-, 2.19): барон хурок хурдан
ба чойхона рафтем > i Л aj «oLkuLa. <_>	I ^Ij-j
‘we went to the teashop (in order) to eat’, вай-ро барон овардан-и
духтур фиристодам	Jjjjl U lSJ ‘I
sent him to fetch the doctor’, барон босмачи-ковй ба як деда
мерафтанд .i'i" aj_j_a «-ла _£_>	n ,»!_> ‘they
were going to a village in order to root out basmachis’ (for this
type of action noun, see 5.10, Stem I Activity nouns).
хамчун ? » (initial stress) ‘as, like; in the capacity of’: дамчун
инсон бояд афв намуд j-a-c. xjL	jj-a—o_a‘as a
human being, one must be forgiving’ (cf. ba sirat-i, 2.22).
чуз j-л. ‘except (for)’ (from Ar. juz’ ‘part’); also, colloquially, ба чуз
j ? j and ба чуз аз jf a_>: чуз ман, дама омаданд
jjj______of <i_‘except for me, they all came’, чуз гиря ва зорй
дигар чора-е надоштем " Л1 аД	ajLa.	I j j
‘We had no recourse but to weep and wail’.
катй, катй, кати, кати ~	< (initial stress) ‘with’ (comitative,
instrumental): у кати мо омад а_лТ L> jl ‘he came (along)
with us’; кати мо кадриянд (qahri and) аД1	‘they
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are annoyed with/ angry at us’; вай к,атй як дасташ чашмон-и
худ-ро молида пок кард I jjjA jI n o7. T
juSL ixJL ‘with one hand he wiped his eyes’ (cf. bo, 2.19).
In Cyrillic, the final vowel may be written either -Й or -и, and
in Perso-Arabic the forms _____£ and cxS are attested—i.e., it is
sometimes treated as if in izofat, in current usage, катй ^.т <, is
the preferred form. It perhaps originated in Tk. qat ‘layer, fold’
(cf. Uz.), which in some dialects gives postpositional phrases
meaning ‘beside, near’. As a preposition, kati is typical of Southern
dialects of Tajik and Persian of Afghanistan (as a postposition,
see 2.24, as a circumposition, 2.25; not to be confused with кади
xa ‘along’, 2.21).
The following two should not be confused:
бинобар j_j Li_> ‘in view of, considering, because of’ (often introducing
a nominalized clause): бинобар бемори-аш, он сол пахта
чидан натавонист 4 ~ \_> JL_cu ji л j j L_j
'Jj " ' ‘in view of his illness/ since he was ill, he could not
pick cotton that year’; бинобар аз х,ад зиёд калон будан-и
сар-аш уро «Ахмад-и Калла» мегуфтанд jLj х^ jl j_> 1_Ъ
.с,- °	ха-э.1" Ijjl с)х._>_ьи	‘on account of his
head’s being/ because his head was abnormally big, they called
him “Bigheaded Ahmad’” (cf. ba sabab-i, etc., 2.22). Though
based, like the next phrase, on the Arabic loanword bino{'an} ₽L_>
‘based’, plus the preposition bar, in Cyrillic this is always written
as one word.
бино ба 4__j I . ‘according to’: бино ба маълумот-и бюро-и
статистик........... <	-'I	«и L_i ‘accord-
ing to data at the Bureau of Statistics...’ (cf. nazar ba, tibq-i,
2.21).
Prepositions may be reduplicated for emphasis; examples for gird-girdi,
qadi-qadi, lab-labi, rd-rtii, tag-tagi are given below (2.21). In Cyrillic
these are hyphenated, except for the -i of izofat. гирд-гирди, etc.
Some prepositions may be formed from Comparative adjectives or
adverbs (2.46): баъдтар аз JI _йхл_. ‘later than, shortly after’, пеш-
тар аз jlj ~ * ‘earlier than, shortly before’. Some may form dimin-
utives (with -ak, 5.2); the following phrase illustrates both techniques:
morphology: nominals
93
сол-и 1920, пештарак аз революция-и Бухоро...
... I	Jз-jj jl eSэ 7 ,7. j_i ‘in 1920, shortly before the
revolution in Bukhara...’.
2.21 Prepositional Phrases (1)
Some nouns and adverbs regularly function, in what are technically
izofat constructions, as prepositions: (дар) пеш-и хона _ (jj)
‘(in) the front of the house’, i.e. ‘in front of/ before the house’.
These may also combine with simple prepositions (2.19) to refine
vectors or change the meaning. This class has been expanding, as
prepositional phrases followed by the preposition ba (2.22) have adopted
a variant with izofat only (cf. nisbat, oid).
Those based on adverbs are usually transparently related to their
base in meaning, whereas those built on nouns may have acquired a
metaphorical sense. In complex prepositions expressing both location
and direction, dar ‘in, at’ usually introduces the locational, and ba ‘to’,
the directional sense (as, more specifically, does az ‘from’); bar ‘on(to)’
may express either.
Common examples of these are listed here, in Cyrillic alphabetical
order, in the sequence: With izofat, with following preposition, with
preceding preposition, reduplicated (hyphenated in Cyrillic. Base words
are not glossed if they are no longer independent lexical items).
адиб ._.a -r. ‘back, rear’: у ба акиб-аш нигох, кард а < jl
jj_________S j ‘he looked behind him,’ дар акиб-и мошинрон
нишастаанд aJ<17... Л, 7 jl	a r jj'they’re sitting
behind the driver’, писарча аз акиб-и падараш мерафт
cj-i i_£ ja-. ._.,a r JI <La,jLj._. ‘the little boy followed (after) his
father’.
байн-и J-j-j мобайн-и	« ‘between, among; during, within’:
байн-и ду кух, &ja ‘between the two hills’, дар байн-и
худамон jl—ajj < jj ‘between ourselves’; дар мобайн-и
се мок чи-ко ёд гирифтам ^.72aL La «La. *L> «и- jj
‘what a lot (of things) I learned in three months!’, дар байн-и
зимистон jI____5______oj j-j-j jj ‘in the course of the winter’ (cf.
tniyon).
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баъд x*_i‘after(wards)’: баъд-и/ баъд аз кор jLS jl	х».
‘after work’ (cf.pas az).
бахр ‘benefit, profit’: бахр-и j_$_> ‘for (the sake of)’, often with a
nominalized VP: бахр-и зохдр кардан-и хак,ик.ат j-fcLU j д ?
iа -> ‘in order to reveal the truth’ (cf. baroi). The variant
аз бахр-и additionally means ‘on account of’.
берун ‘outside’: берун-и/ берун аз шахр	Jjj—н
j I ‘outside/ out of town’.
бидун-и ‘without’ (more literary in style than be): бидун-и
либос-и табобатхона <i '.I	.1  L ^lL-J Jjxj ‘without hospital
clothing’; before a nominalized VP it means ‘apart from, over and
above’: дар мактаб, бидун-и набудан-и асбоб-и аёнй,
муаллимон-и сохибмаълумот низ кам буданд  .	. jj
CjLoj±»-o <_jua-Lco (jLa l* a	<__>I i . ..I	JjJ-J
jjjj_i ‘in the school, apart from there not being any visual aids,
there were few well-informed teachers’ (cf. gayr az).
боло yi_>‘top, upper part’: бар боло-и оташдон jh ^.~iT j_i
‘on the stove(top)’, бар боло-и дарахт баромад
j-ofj-i e -< jj ‘he climbed (up) the tree’, хавли-и мо дар боло-и
pox аст о I j jj Lo ‘our house is on the street’;
metaphorically, он пулхо-ро ба боло-и пул-и дарима зам
карда медихй	*4 *э L-4 Jj-
‘you will pay those sums (added) on top of the amount of
the fine’; дар боло-и як масъала ran задан
jaj <Ji _м. л ‘to talk about a matter’, дар боло-и китоб-и
тоза-е машгул аст	« ^1 ajls <>_>jj ‘he is
busy (working) on a new book’.
давр jjj ‘circuit’: (ба/ дар) давр-и 6of ^L> jjj jj\ <_> ‘(a)round
the garden’ (cf. gird).
дам ‘edge, side’: (дар) дам-и pox *>1 j ‘by the roadside’, онхо
дар дам-и дар истоданд aSalS^.jl jj jj L$JiT ‘they stopped/
stood by the door’.
гирд ‘surroundings’: дар гирд-и стадион jLi-S____________jj
‘around the stadium’; гирд-гирди хона j‘all a-
round the house’ (cf. davr).
гайр j-yl ‘other(s)’: ба гайр аз Тодикистон jl~i 7Is jl j ;«j
morphology: nominals
95
‘other than/ apart from/ except for Tajikistan’.
дарун ‘interior’: дарун-и хона «uLk JjjJ ‘inside the house’.
зер jjJ ‘underneath’: дар зер-и миз буд дj_i j jj ‘it was
under/ beneath the table’, муш ба зер-и mhz гурехта рафт
cj-ij < ~ j-j-a j-jJ «и (jij-a ‘the mouse ran under(neath)
the table’; дар зер-и зулму зах,мат cj-a___________=xj j -> I b jj
‘under oppression and toil, laboring under oppression’, дар зер-и
рох,бари-и партия <	। alj jJ ‘under the leader-
ship of the party’.
канор ‘bank, shore, edge’: дар канор-и майдон jl '< jj
jk' i a ‘at the edge of the square’ (cf. lab).
кабл J_i_i (Ar.) ‘before, previously’: кдбл аз цанг .£ ‘i-ч JI J ; °
‘before the war’.
кад j-5 (Ar.) ‘length; beside, along’ (cf. 1.8, Arabic geminates; in this
usage, qad(d) generally retains the single consonant before izofat):
кади/ кадди куча	j—5\	5 ‘along the street’; 6ofot-h
кади руд jjj ________3 с=_>1_c.L□ ‘the gardens along the river’. It is
often reduplicated for emphasis: ангурко-и кад-кади рок
e>lj	‘the vineyards all along the roadside’.
This should not be confused with кати etc., ‘with’ (2.20).
кафо I a "a ‘nape, back’: кас-е дар кафо-и у истода буд jj оЦ1 <.
£>jl_3_uu_jI jl <^1_a___3 ‘someone was standing behind him’,
духтарак аз кафо-и модараш рафтан гирифт jl j______________~
cuij_£	a j Ji jjLo Jit ‘the little girl set off after/ followed
her mother’ (cf. pay).
лаб u_J ‘lip, brink’: лаб-и даре Ljjj i_J ‘on the bank of the river’;
лаб-лаби бом омад у тозон ^1 jLk jl j______________»T ^L_i. J  I ‘he
rushed up to the very edge of the roof’ (cf. kanor).
мисл Ji____о ‘the like(ness) of’: мисл-и мо I___о Ji__a ‘like us’ (cf.
monand-r, cun, 2.19; — barin, 2.23).
миён jL-o ‘middle, waist’: миён-и ману ту Ji j j-a jLa ‘between
you and me’, дар миён-и кукко ‘amid the mountains’; дар
миён-и мардум j*Jj-a jLj_a jj ‘among the people’, аз миён-и
мо La йЦ?-0 j' ‘from among us, from our midst’.
монанд xksLa ‘resembling; likeness’: (ба) монанд-и мо л-кк(_а(<1_1)
La ‘like us’ (cf. misl-i; cun, 2.19; — barin, 2.23).
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назар j_kJ> ‘look, view’: назар ба гуфта-и у jl 4_____т « < к •,
‘according to his statement, going by what he said’ (cf. bino ba,
2.20): назар ба сол-и гузашта 4 ~ ЛА JI   j-kL ‘compared
with last year’; ба назар-и ман ‘in my view/ opinion’.
назд-и ‘near, at, by (the side of), in the presence of’: дар назд-и
дарвоза ьjljjj Jjj jj ‘at/ by the gate’, китоб дар назд-и вай
(аст)	jjk jj	‘he has the book’ (temporary/
alienable possession); у дахида хесту назд-и машина омада
истод J " ...л! 6	.< л Jj-ij j А. т. jl ‘he jumped
up and went and stood by the vehicle’, аз назд-и хатт-и рох-и
ох,ан то......Lj ij-лТ ь! Ш. jjL jl ‘(starting) from the (side of
the) railroad track as far as...’, дар назд-и бобо дастурхон-и
пур аз ноз-у неъмат кушоданд j_> jl ...л LU jj2
jSjLi^ j jL ‘they spread before grandfather a delightful
banquet’.
нисбат .xjj mi’> ‘relation, connection’: нисбат ба/ нисбат-и
______uU \<-i ‘in connection with, regarding, with respect to, in
comparison with, toward, vis-a-vis’: нисбат ба ин масъала
41 Un jj-il 4_i ‘in regard to this matter’, нисбат-и вафот-
и модар-аш	^Lsj  ' ‘concerning the death of his
mother’; нисбат ба шумо хубтар ‘better than you’ (lit. ‘in
relation to you, better’; cf. 2.42).
оид kL • xjLc (Ar.) ‘relative, dependent’: оид ба/ оид- \4_j
k>Lc ‘about, concerning’: оид-и бино-и нав як шеър навишт
jL j-*- Л	‘he wrote a poem about the new
building’; also used to link institutions with their stated purpose (a
caique on Rus. usage): донун-и (оид ба) забои а_>1—с) з>21—а
(jLij (4—1 ‘the Language Law’, комиссия-и шадрй оид ба
корхо-и наврасон jLu^La jl£ 4_> j_>Lc Л, a  ...*< ‘the
Municipal Board for Juvenile Affairs’ (MLT style, cf. 5.26; this
usage tends nowadays to be replaced by a simple iwfat).
пай ‘track’: аз паи (пай-и) касе рафтан jL-ij ^ < jl ‘to
follow, pursue 8.о.;дар паи касе/ низе рафтан о5 jj
(3-2_______i j (_gj j >\ ‘to go in quest of, looking for s.o./ s.t.’, аз паи
касе афтидан al	jl ‘to pursue, track down, hunt
s.o.’; with an infinitive or action noun, expresses purpose: аз паи
morphology: nominals
97
пахтачинй рафтааст ‘he’s gone off to pick cotton’.
пас ‘back, hindquarters’. Locational and directional: дар пас-и
хона «GiLi. jj ‘behind/ in back of the house’ (cf. aqib), (аз)
пас-и ондо Давидам I 'J JI ‘I ran after them’ (cf.
pay). Sequential: як-е пас аз дигар-е jl	‘one
after another’. Temporal: пас аз мачдис » JI ‘after
the session’, пас аз ду руз jjj jj jl ‘after two days, two
days later’ (cf. ba’d).
падлу j I j j ‘side, flank’: самовархона дар падлу-и масдид будааст
"«...1   л (jgj) I (j t jj «ujLi.jjl—о uj the teashop is said to
be next to the mosque’, аз падлу-и рафид-аш нишаст jl
.........* *	; ° j csjJ-e- ‘he sat (down) next to his friend’, аз
падлу-и давлй гузаштанд ,G~i j_a. jl ‘they pass-
ed (by) the house’.
пеш J- _ _ ‘front; before’ Location, direction and metaphors: дар
пеш-и хона истод j!~ —. jI «UtA jj ‘be stoPPed 'n front of
the house’, аз пеш-и хона гузашт с.	jl ‘he
passed in front of/ went past the house’; дар пеш-и устод мехонад
jJ>ld ...I y. jj ‘he is studying under the professor’,
(ба) пеш-и духтур рафт cu_sj jj ~i Aj (<_□) ‘he went to
see the doctor’ (lit. ‘...before the doctor’), ман ту-ро ба пеш-и
ин кас шарманда намекардам j-J	_ «_> lj^_s (j_a
j<  a •. a C. a J л,‘I would not have embarrassed you in front of
him’.
Temporal: пеш аз зухр хобида рафт e>a-±_iljl
oj j ‘he fell asleep before noon’.
пушт .7.‘back’: (дар) пушт-и ин куд ij—S J-J c., j (jj)
‘behind this hili’,аз пушт-и девор _>ljjj о, Лjl ‘from behind
the wall’.
рочеъ ба < ‘about, concerning’ (cf. aid ba\ dar bora-i, etc.,
2.22).
ру(й) ‘face, surface’: ру-и девор jljjj <_s_5j ‘on the wall’, пиёла-ро
аз ру-и лаълй бардошта ба ру-и мез нидод jl I <JL_i_>
j_j_o cjjj-j < ~ '-I ljIaJ ‘she took the cup off the tray and
put it on the table’; дар py ба ру-и мо нишаст jj jj
,7. \ Lo ‘he sat (down) opposite us/ facing us’. Reduplicated:
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ман ру-руи рельс-и дилодор давидан гирифтам -5J
Jajjj jbiLa. t.yJ-jj cSJJ *1 started to run right on top of
the gleaming rail’ (in Cyrillic the forms рун, руйи both occur,
but the former is considered more correct; see 1.12.)
Metaphorical: аз ру-и серкорй	JI ‘owing to
too much work’ (see ser-, 5.6); аз ру-и таквим-и кадима jl
«I—o-jj—3 p-jj—5-3 -/according to the old calendar’, аз ру-и
эътикод-и мардум jLUU.1 jl ‘going by what people
think’ (lit. ‘from the appearance of people’s belief’); аз ру-и
рахму шафкат .z.5 a j, j j jl ‘out of pity and compas-
sion’.
cap ‘head’: дар сар-и pox, истод Jj jj ‘he stopped
on the way’, ба cap-и полиз рафтанд cr, j______________JU j, ... <t_j
‘they went to (work in) the kitchen-garden’, дар cap-и дастгох
sL$_3—uuj j—uu jj ‘at the workbench’, дар cap-и дастархон jj
jLUj ~i ‘„-i j-ьи ‘at table, at dinner’, аз cap-и миз хест jl
Jj-a ‘he left the table’.
таг^З ‘bottom’ (var. так JU, тах <U): (дар) таг-и дарахт^З (jj)
cUjj ‘under/ at the foot of the tree’, дар таг-и замин . < "
—oj‘under (the) ground’; аз таг-и дил Jj JL3 jl ‘from the
bottom of [one’s] heart’; таг-таги замин j	‘deep
underground’.
тараф UjJa ‘side’: (ба) тараф-и Худанд рафтааст <_sjJo
«xj-cuI <t_3_s j .Q.^.A. ‘he went in the direction of/ toward Khujand’;
аз тараф-и хукумат даъват шуд сиjl
‘[we] got an invitation on behalf of/ from the government’.
тибк-и конститутсия	. . ~>j ". _ ... 'X j . L ‘according to/ in ac-
cordance with the constitution’ (cf. bino ba, nazar ba, 2.20).
фароз j Ij—5 ‘height’ (literary; not used as an independent nominal):
(ба) фароз-и кух	‘up the mountain’, бар фароз-
и теппа <_J jl_H j-j ‘on top of the hill; over the hili’, аз рох-и
фароз-и кух Jljj siэ jl ‘down/ across the mountain road’.
шафат cuj____i ‘vicinity; near’: дар шафат-и хамдигар	jj
л a ‘close by each other, in the same vicinity’.
хамрох slj-o-л ‘(traveling) companion; together’: (бо) хамрох-и он-
xo омадам ^j_aT si j-ojb (L) ‘I came (along) with them’.
morphology: nominals
99
2.22 Prepositional Phrases (2)
The following uniform type consists of a simple preposition followed
by a noun in iwfat-, they are often metaphorical, but usually transparent
in meaning (i.e, they correspond to similar metaphors in English and
other languages). Unlike the preceding class of prepositional phrases,
these do not omit the preposition. (The list is basically alphabetical,
but synonyms and preposition variants are grouped together.)
аз дихат-и .пд •> Jl ‘from the standpoint of’; аз чониб-и	jl
‘on the part of, on behalf of’ (cf. az taraf-i)\ аз тарс-и	jl
‘from fear of’; аз вахт-и j jl, аз хангом-и ~i t j I, аз
хин-и	Jl, аз аёом-и j»LI jl ‘from the time of, since’.
ба/дар бадал-и Jj_. jj \<l_. ‘in exchange for’; ба бахона-и <_i
LG I д ? ‘on the pretext of’; ба восита-и k ...I‘by means of’;
ба замм-и .Aj, ба илова-и ь‘in addition to’ (cf. ilova
bar, 2.21); ба ниат-и qG <u, ба хасд-и j^i <u, бо махсад-
и n L ‘with the aim/ intention of’.
ба мукофот-и ejl_____«К л <l_> ‘as a reward for, in requital of’; 6a
муносибат-и	!'» а <и ‘on the occasion of’; ба ном-и
‘in the name of, named for/ after’: ба ном-и шумо як мактуб
омад j_а Г ._.j	I п ^L1_> ‘a letter has come for you’;
китобхона-и давлати-и ба ном-и Фирдавсй	—3—$
j-s ^GLl jj ‘the Firdawsi State Library’.
ба/ аз сабаб-и ? ... J I\«l_1, аз боис-и oxL j I, ба иллат-и .^.1»?
‘because of, by reason of’; ба сират-и j ба сифат-и
.-Л .<-> ‘in the capacity of, as’; ба тарз-и Jj-k_>, ба тариха-и
a a.j L - ‘by way of, in the manner of’; ба туфайл-и Jj a A <t_>,
ба шарофат-и <_» ‘by virtue of, thanks to’.
ба шараф-и <L ‘in honor of’; ба шарт-и -1= ‘on condition
of’; ба умед-и j_____i_J <t-u ‘in hope(s) of’; ба хакк-и <u ‘in
respect of, where — is concerned’: ба хакдд духтурон бадгумон
будам	,jl jjGLLj ‘I was wary of doctors’.
бар акс-и (j..< <- j_i ‘contrary to, in contrast to’; бар зидд-и jj
‘against, opposed to’; бар/ ба хилоф-и «-syl—i.‘contrary
to’: бар хилоф-и хонун JjALJ ^jyLG.j_i ‘against the law’, бар
хилоф-и хохиш-и у jl	—G. ^_syl—G. j_i ‘against his will,
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contrary to his wishes’.
бо вучуд-и j L ‘despite, in spite of’ (lit. ‘with the existence of’):
бо вучуд-и бемори-аш маро чет зад Ij_a	;jl „ , , L
jJ ‘despite his illness he called out to me’.
дар айн-и	—c jj ‘in the (very) act of’ (with infinitive or action
noun): дар айин-и аспсаворй ^jl...I jj ‘in the act of
riding (a horse)’; дар арафа-и 5____ij—c. jj ‘on the eve of, just
before’; дар баробар-и j_>lj_> jj ‘equal to, on a par with, level
with’ (cf. 2.46).
дар бора-и ajU jj, дар боб-и ,_>!_> jj, дар/ аз хусус-и Jl\jj
А, дар хадд-и J-a. jj ‘about, concerning’ (cf. aid ba,
roje’ ba, 2.21).
дар иваз-и <_>A j—c jj ‘in return for’; дар/ ба мудобил-и
J-jI—a—о ‘opposite, facing’ (cf. ru ba ru-i, 2.21); дар соя-и jj
LL. ‘under the protection/ aegis of’; дар сурат-и ejjj-uo jj ‘in
case of’; дар тул-и Jj_L jj, дар давом-и j»ljj jj ‘during, in
the course of’; дар муддат-и	—о jj, ‘(with)in the space of,
during’.
дар рох-и al j jj (lit. ‘in the way of, a caique on an Ar. expression)
‘for the sake of, in furtherance of, toward’: дар рох-и тарадди-и
хочаги-и ватан-и худ кор карда истода-анд j_3 alj jj
Al ajl ~i .u il ajj-£ jL£ □ jA jj-Lj UX>IjA ‘they are working to
improve the national economy’ (‘in the way of progress of...’).
дар тахт-и .r., T jj ‘under’ (mostly metaphorical): дар тахт-и
рохбари-и партия <_Аj_i	и»!j с., -A jj ‘under the leader-
ship of the party’ (cf. z.er, 2.21).
дар дабат-и c.i j a jj ‘in between (the layers of)’: хат-ро дар дабат
-и китоб монда буд <$-. aAU>  .ItC о j a jj IjLA ‘he had
put the letter between the pages of the book’; дар датор-и jj
jl k a ‘in the company of, along with, among’; дар хузур-и jj
jj .А-». ‘in the presence of’ (not to be confused with the adjective-
adverbial ба/ бо хузур jj .A Li \jj .A -> । ‘at ease, comfort-
able, safe(ly)’).
то вадт-и j U, то дин-и j Li ‘until the time of, up to the
moment of’.
Several of these can be adapted as subordinating conjunctions (4.32-33).
morphology: nominals
101
Some, formed mainly with dar ‘in’ and certain abstract nouns denoting
a time, situation, or process, usually govern an action noun, activity
noun or Infinitive (often with a possessive modifier) to generate adverbial
phrases that are already nominalized temporal clauses, e.g.: аз аём-и
дарсхони-и ман j_______________J jl ‘from the time of my
schooldays [‘learning’]; since I was a student’; дар тул-и цанг jj
 < ~i 7 J_j_L ‘throughout [‘in the length of’] the war’; дар холат-и
бехуши-ям _i Л,j е J ?	jj ‘in my state of unconsciousness; while
I was unconscious’; дар дараён-и кор jLS jj *n the course
of the work; while the work was progressing’; то хин-и рафтан-и у
jl jSj j	l3‘until the moment of his going; up until he left’.
2.23 Postpositions
The use of postpositions is a feature that distinguishes Tajik from
Standard Persian. Of these, most are apparently adapted from existing
prepositions. They are placed after the complete NP. Monosyllabic
postpositions are not stressed; in other cases the stress will be noted.
Exclusively used as postpositions are:
-анда блУ-, after a vowel -нда ‘in, at’; characteristic of Ferghana, this
(unstressed) postposition is perhaps related to the Classical Persian
postposition andar jj_il ‘in(side)’. When written, it is joined to
the preceding word; e.g., бозоранда aaS jl jU bozor-anda ‘in the
market’, хонанда axi «LilA xona-nda ‘in the house, at home’.
барин ‘like, resembling; as if’ (cf. misl-i, monand-i): the only
full-time postposition in literary Tajik: Ахмад барин шат-
рандбоз-ро ман то хол надидам I j jlugSj-k d,	j—ad
JLo. Li (j-o ‘I have never seen a chess player like Ahmad’.
It may form a simile: шир барин сафед л j а ...	‘(as)
white as milk’, духтар-и сурат барин хушруй cu
LSJJ u-'j-? ‘a lasl pretty as a picture’. With NPs denot-
ing a quantity or measure, -barin supplies an approximation: як
коса барин	«-£_ ‘about a cupful’.
The NP that it forms may accept a plural suffix (and itself
become the object of a preposition): ба {ман барин-хо} зан
кудо! >1	< jj (LA(3-jj_i (З-о] <-> ‘what’s (the use of) a wife to
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the likes of me!’. It may take a diminutive suffix: агар хохй,
ман баринак не, аз ман зиёд-тар багайрат... шуда метавонй
6|\— ui . ..Oj—\ > ^_ial—ij cj— J 1 <f<—1 1 *>—1	J 1
^1 j j । n ‘if you want, you can become not merely like me, but
more ambitious’.
After a verbal noun or participle, barin nominalizes a speculative
simile: ногахон {цизе ба хотир-аш расидагй барин} боз-
истода... jl_>	j_LLA <(—i <_g j j ^L>
...al T ы._|1 ‘suddenly he stopped, as if something had occurred to
him, and...’ (‘like something to his mind having arrived’; for the
form rasidagi, see 3.44).
Barin may be reinforced by xud ‘self’ placed before the nominal
(2.32), in which case the final d of this pronoun is often doubled
before izofat enclitic: худци ту барин /xuddi tu barm/ ‘just like
you’; худди худ-аш барин гуфт <2,4	j-4. j‘he
repeated it word for word’ (‘said it just as itself’ The gemination
may be a popular hypercorrection by analogy with a class of
Arabic loanwords; see 1.8).
боз jL ‘(ever) since’ (a point in time), ‘for’ (a period, continuing at
the moment of speech), in present time, boz usually requires the
resultative Perfect tense: у шаб боз дуруст наёзидааст Л Э1
Jl___j-1 jl_i ‘he hasn’t lain down properly the
whole night’; цанг cap шудан боз фаъолият-и бай дучанд
зиёд шудааст aUj аД-э-ja	* a jL Ja. A j ...  < .-v
i^.l aa_4. ‘since the war began his activity has doubled/ he has
been twice as active’; ду сол боз ягон одам саломат аз цанг
баргашта наомадааст, ё хабар-и марг-аш меояд, ё аз даст-у
по цудо шуда меояд а j_i , 'l? jl ^а( jtS-j JL— ja
аЛ-ц| Ia-а, Li j « jl Li а_Л (j—°	° j L *~ 1 "'I aa_oLj
a-jf ^-o ‘for two years now/ for the past two years, no one has
returned from the war [alive and] well; either there comes news of
his death, or he comes minus an arm or a leg’ (see 5.20, omadan).
In past time, the simple past is used: барфе, ки ду руз боз
пайваста борид,......a-ijU^ 4 ~  „j jL jjj ja j_i
‘the snow that had been falling for two days...’ (cf. az vaqt-i, etc.,
2.22, intaraf 2.25; boz as an adverb, 2.46; the adjective boz (yoz).
MORPHOLOGY: NOMINALS
103
2.39; the conjunction az boz-e ki, 4.27).
2.24 Postpositions of Opportunity
Nouns and adverbs of time or place such as help to form prepositions
may be postposed, in a caique on Uzbek usage (esp. in Northern dialects
and MLT). After an infinitive (cf. boz, above), they nominalize an
underlying adverbial clause. The following are typical:
замон(о) CiLo j\ jl-0 j ‘time’; generates a punctual time phrase: ohxjo
омадан замон телефон кун (j£ (jj i I "> jU j (jj-»l Lpl ‘phone
(me) when they come’ (‘their coming time...’); дарвоза кушода
шудан замон як нафар савор ба сарой даромад a jljjj
j-oi'jj j.... j j I j-uo j-iJi	(jLoj (ja-ui ‘when the gate
was opened a horseman rode into the courtyard’; ба Душанбе
расидан замоно LLo j	j 4 ? ~i & jj 4_> ‘when we reached
Dushanbe’ (a more colloquial form, perhaps < zamon-ho).
хамон(о) Ll_q_a\ jl—o-a ‘that very (moment)’ (cf. hamin ki ‘just as’,
4.27). Rhymes with, and used similarly to, zamon(o) above, i.e.,
anticipating an action performed immediately after the postpos-
itional phrase: онхо {аз автобус фаромадан хамоно} ба
мадлис-и колхозчиён равона мешаванд j-iLljl jl) I—рТ
' *	4_jljj (jl—I \ IL£ I л 4_i {LL<kA (j. \ о I д Once
they get off the bus they go to the collective farmers’ meeting’.
баробар j-j ‘equal, on a level with, simultaneous’: аскарбача ба
посбон наздик шудан баробар «як босмачи-ро дошта
овардам» гуфт . j" j-J j_i	uSLjjJ jL_i—uL 4_,	r.
-.»< fJjjl ° .7.1' |Jtra.4_a—uL ‘as (soon as) the young soldier
approached the sentry he said, “I’ve captured a Basmachi’”
(‘...simultaneous with his coming near the sentry...’). This may be
also used as a prepositional izofat phrase: баробар-и {ба охир
расидан-и сухан-и Юнусбобо}... якчанд кас... «офарин»
гуён овоз бароварданд jj_A-------ш jj—j-------j j—a.L_i j-jIj-j
jjjjjlj—i jl jl (jLjj_S (j_jj—al j 12*	- -  Ц L as
(soon as) Yunusbobo reached the end of his speech, several people...
raised a cry of “bravo!”’ (for guyon, see 4.18).
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интараф u-gj U \ _J, индониб	‘ for [an elapsed period])’:
чахор руз индониб ?\il Jjj J ‘for (the past) four
days’: see 2.25.
пас ‘after’, an adverb which also forms prepositions (2.22), may
similarly be postposed to an infinitive: омадан пас чй кор
кард ед? S	jL-£ (у*.	J j-Л ‘after you came, what did
you do?’ (‘after coming’).
ном ‘by name, called’: Шодмирзо ном як тодик буд si______________Д
<_£-A_a.Ls ^lj I Jj—j___a ‘there was a Tajik, Shohmirzo by
name’, аз Дарвоз ном кишлод-е омадааст Jljjj jl
cxJ 6j-oT	‘he comes from a village called Darvoz’ (cf.
ba-nom-i, 2.22).
пеш ‘before’ (2.19; and its synonym qabl), it can be argued, is
also a postposition in adverbial phrases of time such as се мод
пеш Ji-u aLa ‘three months ago’ (as, indeed, is ‘ago’, which
has no other function in English). The construction is common to
Persian; however, in modern SP it is generally interpreted as an
izofat (se mah-e pis), which makes pis a modifier, not a postposition,
кати, дйтй, кАти, дйти ° ^'i S ‘with’ (comitative, instrumental;
in current usage, кати is the preferred form. As a preposition,
see 2.20; as a circumposition, 2.25; cf. bo, hamroh). As a post-
position (typical of Northern dialects): ту кати ". a у; ‘with
you’, писар-аш Рашид кати баробар " < j________. t.j  _>
j_>l‘her son [is] the same age as Rashid’ (‘equal with R.’);
кайчй кати нохун гирифтам р". '»j_S JAL.	« T cut
my nails with scissors’; ин род кати рафтан хавфнок аст
...I ^U_ajA jSjj	al ‘it is scary to travel (by) this road’.
Even the simple prepositions of Tajik Persian, ba, bo, and da (for dar),
may be postposed in Northern dialects, by structural analogy with
Uzbek phrases: xond-ba ‘(in)to the house/ room’, man-ba ‘to me’,
dw-da raft (ob-dar) ‘she went for/ to bring water’. They are usually
hyphenated when reproduced in Cyrillic: ука-т кудо-ба? ________$jl
ч j.I < ‘where’s your younger brother?’; имсол миднат-ба бисер
мегиранд	jl ц.  <_,:,A a Jl ^,_sl ‘this year they are
earning a lot through [their] labor’; шир ман-ба намефорад j j »
jjl_____a	4—i-jj-o ‘milk doesn’t agree with me’; ман дил-ам
morphology: nominals
105
шикаста-бо, байт гуям-мй?	J?,
‘me with my heart broken, compose verse?’. (For postposed participial
phrases, e.g., ba - nigoh karda, az - dida, see 2.42,4.41.)
2.25 Ambipositions
Strictly speaking, these comprise double case-markers that respectively
precede and follow their NP, as in Classical Persian ba-sang bar
j_> <• ‘upon the rock’. Phrases in which the object of a preposition
is followed by an adjective or adverb are not usually true circumpositions,
since the adjective or adverb is a constituent of the Verb Phrase, not
the Prepositional Phrase: {ба шахр} {наздик аст} {j-------j---i <_.}
...I < _.<j ‘{it is close} {to the town}’, {аз хона} {берун
баромаданд}	Jjj-x-.} {«cLk J I] ‘{they exited} {from the
house}’. In other such patterns, however, the postposed adjective-adverb
is essential to the meaning of the prepositional phrase: {бо онхо
баробар} {нест} [cuu-u—uJ} [j_>Ij_j I—Ц] ‘{he is not} {equal to
them}’.
The examples illustrated here also construct postpositions.
аз — интараф u_sjb'J -jl, аз — инчонйб с_лД1—- jl (lit.
‘from — this side’) ‘since’ (cf. boz, above). The formulation with
az ‘from’ is used when the start of the elapsed period is mentioned:
у аз ибтидо-и пахтачинй интараф зиёд аз ёздах тонна
пахта чидааст jl jL j j-U \- I	<—j—Це	\il jl jl
...I a.i '-s. 4 " k _ «C.L bJjC ‘since the start of cotton-picking, he
has picked more than eleven tonnes’; аз аввал-и мох-и рамазон
индониб руза медоштааст у Ъ1 jl—«j »l—a Jjl jl
...I а л.1.« a jj_, ‘he has been fasting since the first of
Ramadan’.When the elapsed period, not its starting point, is the
object of the adposition, az is excluded and the result is a
postpositional phrase: чанд руз интараф аз хаёлу андеша cap
на- мебардорй?	j JL-e-A jl JjkJ jjj .хЦ-
‘(f°r) how many days now have you been downcast
with anxieties and worry?’; чахор руз инчониб jjj jl--------
. .‘.I	.1 ‘for four days (now)’. Az may also be omitted when the
starting point given is less precise: хар чй Фирузачон омадан
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CHAPTER TWO
индониб ин хона-и мо хеле... равшантар шуд j_a>
‘ever since Firuzajon came, this house of ours has been
much...brighter’ (for har ci, see 2.42)
бо — баробар ‘equal to, level with’: see first paragraph, and cf. 2.24.
катй, кати, к,адй, кадй .^д-З <о~» <. .о~ ° (2.20, 2.24) ‘with’
(instrumental) as a circumposition, usually joins its synonym bo\
бо кошук катй мехурад jjjA	, /13 J-iLS U ‘he eats with
a spoon’; occasionally, ba\ ба зарб-и пул кати вай-а халос
кард jj_£	—L <_jj	4_> ‘he saved him by
means of financial influence’.
Some circumpositioning is achieved by postposing the preposition in a
prepositional phrase: гйу-i cil-u cor-ba sudem ‘I’m forty four’ (lit.,
‘happened upon 44’), xona-mon {tag-i idora-i kolxoz-ba} ‘our house
is down from the kolkhoz office’; ne, {darun-i ow-ba} na-daromadam,
{a[z] ow berun} obbozi kardam ‘no, 1 didn’t go into the water, I
splashed around outside (it)’ (here the second circumposition is in
Persian sequence).
2.26 The Vocative
In spoken Tajik a person or persons may be addressed, by name or
epithet, or both, without any modification of or addition to the words
or phrase; the utterance is frequently characterized as vocative by
intonation—a high tone and/ or primary stress on the first syllable:
Холида! JLA ‘Kholida!’, даноб-и муаллим! i-J* n ‘Sir!/
Teacher!’, рафикон-и азиз! IJjJ-c a j ‘Dear comrades!’, бача,
ин до биё! !L_a_i La. (3-J ‘boy, come here!’. The addition of the
endearing suffix -jon (if it is not an established element of the name)
may also serve to mark the utterance as vocative: пйсардон!
!	‘kid!’, Рахим(дон)!	j ‘Rahim!’, дугона-дон!
a.4-11—Sjj (a girl to her best friend; for these and other modes of
address, see 5.22).
The vocative phrase usually comes first; however, if the utterance
contains new or rhetorically important information, this may precede
it. Шумо-ро oFyin мегирам,... дамкорон-и дарин ва ардманд
morphology: nominals
107
''T-jl j j-s jl jI£-o_a ...<^ j _i*s _i л jjii j_cl I jLa_i ‘I embrace you,...
close and honored colleagues’.
In formal speech, or literature, the vocative may be introduced by a
(stressed) particle эй ^1. This combination is a prosodic unit; unlike
most other cases of an exclamation followed by a term of address, ey is
not followed by a pause or a comma: эй падар! jjj ‘о father!’.
Two other archaic vocative particles occur in frozen phrases and
poetry, the Arabic ё L and its augmentation аё LI: ё карим! L
‘o Noble One!’ (invoking a name of God), ё бахт! !.- Ч ... L. ‘о
(mis)fortune!’; аё сайёд, рах,м-е кун, ма-рандон нимдон-ам-ро!
ц1 ? ' j » (3^ j >1 . Ll‘o hunter, have mercy, do
not harm me, half dead as I am!’ (verse).
A few exclamations from the large repertory in Tajik (cf. 4.9)
generally occur together with terms of address: Aaa, Рахим, ин ту
Хасти? а у;	<<CLI ‘oh, Rahim, is that you?’ (expres-
sing surprise); \ой, мардум, об баромад, об! ------------------о ^Lu
!u_.T <j__‘hey, people, the water’s coming, the water!’ (to get
attention); эха, шумо хам дар хамин до-ку! jj L п 4. L_J
< I__а. з . л a ‘Huh, so you’re here too, are you?’ (annoyance or
remonstration); чу, пахлавон-ам	j-a. ‘hey, big guy’ (‘oh, my
hero’), чу, ч.он-и ширин,.....jL ja. ‘oh, sweetheart, would
you...’ (endearment, cajolery).
The conventional response when initially addressed is лаббай!
‘yes?’. Ldbbay serves also as an acknowledgment when picking
up the telephone (as well as бале ^-L ‘yes’). To initiate a phone call,
one uses the international ало I ‘hello’ or the variant алё LJ I.
PRONOMINALS
2.27 Personal Pronouns: Forms
Personal pronouns are of two kinds, independent and enclitic. Each of
these series maps onto the verb tense paradigms in person and number
(see 3.4), and both function as possessive pronouns and determiners.
This and the following section will treat the Independent pronouns.
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In Fig. 2.27, variants in parentheses are colloquial and dialect forms
as reproduced in literature. The forms ин ‘this (one)’, он jl ‘that
(one)’ and plurals ино (инхо) ‘these’ and онхо L^sT ‘those’ are bor-
rowed from the demonstratives; вай ‘he, she, it’ may also function
as a demonstrative adjective (2.31). Pronouns are not marked for gender,
even in the 3rd person: вай у jl, and ин j-Л each may mean ‘he’
or ‘she’, and their plural counterparts may designate inanimates or
animates/ humans of either sex. The 3rd singular у means only ‘he’ or
‘she’, whereas он jT means only ‘it’ (as other than subject; see below).
Fig. 2.27 Personal Pronouns
Isg. ман	‘Г	Ipl.	mo (моён, мохо, мохон) ^qLaLs rLfcLa «^jL-lLa^ La	‘we’
2sg. ту	‘you’	2pl.	шумо (шумоён, шумохо) ‘you’ f L& La. ui t L La. uij 1 о м	
3sg. вай, у, (ин) (cH1) J1 ‘L53 он (вай ^j)	‘he, she’ 3pl. jl ‘it’		онхо (ино, вайо) (Lj^$ cLujI) ЦзТ	‘they’
1st Person: ман T is valid in all literary and colloquial registers
for a user of any class. In earlier times, when addressing superiors,
it was routinely replaced by self-deprecatory nouns and adjectives
such as банда аАЬ ‘slave’, факир j j » »‘poor’, хакир j.
‘contemptible’, камина ‘inferior’, так,сир j  ‘short-
coming’—this last originating in the obsequious formula ман дар
хидмат-и шумо таксир кардам _» . °" 1 я Л jj
‘1 have fallen short in serving you’; it is not construed with
a 1st Person verb, but in ways which make it appear almost a 2nd
Person term of address (cf. SP qorban-, see the example in 3.39).
Of these, banda may still be used in a stylized editorial context:
ба гумон-и банда & A. jLaS <_> ‘in my humble opinion’.
When marked with -ro, man takes the form маро I j_a ZmaroZ;
a common colloquial variant is /mana/.
Colloquially man may be substituted by the plural mo La ‘we’,
as a self-effacing strategy. Hence, if a true plural ‘we’ is intended,
mo (____a may be supplemented by one of three explicitly plural
morphology: nominals
109
suffixes: мо-ён jLL» (with euphonic у-glide, cf. 2.4) and mo-x.0
are regular, мохон jLbl—o is a dialect blend. Mo can be used as
an institutional or editorial ‘we’; an inclusive ‘we’ is provided by
the phrase мову шумо I.л.Л, j La ‘we/1 and you’: ватан-и мову
шумо I л.2. j La j ‘our common homeland’.
2nd Person: ту у ‘you’ (‘thou’), is the form of familiar address, used
to a friend or relative, child, animal, or God; in some milieus this
may extend to social inferiors, while younger relatives may address
elders by the respectful sumo. This person serves as a generalized
mode of address, especially in proverbs and popular writing: xox
ба Москва равй, xox ба Фаргона, хона-и худ-ат <_i alj—L
LlLA	4_> ala... n ‘whetheryou goto
Moscow or to Ferghana, you’ll feel at home’ (‘[it is] your own
house’). In Perso-Arabic, the form with -ro may be written as one
word Iy, though Iэу is preferable. A colloquial variant is /tura/.
Шумо I л A ‘you’, as well as denoting the plural of tu, is the
pronoun of formal address both singular and plural, used in speaking
to a stranger or superior. In written address (letters, etc.) it is
usually capitalized. Like its European counterparts, it is in effect
the unmarked or neutral form of address, when relative status is
uncertain or not an issue. (For other functions of the 2nd person,
see 3.4.) If a markedly deferential stance is indicated, sumo may
be supplemented Ьучаноб ‘sir, ma’am’ (5.22). For explicit
plural use, one of the standard plural suffixes may be added in
spoken Tajik: шумоён jLI « j., шумохо LAL^i'you all’.
3rd Person: As noted above, the three variants of ‘he, she, it’ are
asymmetrically distributed. Stylistically, вай ‘he, she’ is in
general literary and spoken use, у jl ‘he, she’ is more literary or
even archaic (the converse of the situation in SP); ин у I as ‘he,
she’ and вай as ‘it’ are dialect. Variants of инро I J(y I and
вайро I are ina and vaycr, a literary contraction варо I jj is
occasionally encountered. In speaking about someone in their
presence, the polite ин кас у I ‘this person’ (pl. ин касон
jl.uS у I ‘these persons’) is substituted for the pronoun.
Oh ‘it’, as distinct from emphatic ‘that’, occurs more usually
in non-subject positions (on-ro,dar on, etc.; cf. 2.28, under Subject).
по
CHAPTER TWO
‘They’ for persons or things is ондо Lpl (colloquial /(no/, i.e.,
индо I a ~i-iI). Less usual is the animate plural онон jUu ‘they’
(human). In premodern times the 3rd plural pronoun was эшон
‘they’, which can still be found in elevated literary style:
забои ва адабиёт-и эшон дам ривоч, ёфта омада-аст jUj
си-^1 6 j-Л <1_^1 jj	jLi_J cjLxjal j ‘their language and
literature have also come to prevail’ (sc. the Tajiks). Eson became
first a polite singular (but with plural verb agreement; cf. SP
isan), and ultimately a noun referring to a religious notable. This
left a truncated form шон j Li. as the deferential pronoun, which
may still be used in place of й or vay, but in an ironic sense: ана,
халос, боз шон родбар-и сиёси-и колхоз... будаанд
аД| ... jl_kJL5 ...I _i ... j jLi jL .^^LL ‘Anyway,
Hizzoner was again (they say) the political leader of the collective
farm’ (note plural verb agreement, also ironically deferential).
2.28 Personal Pronouns: Functions
In a sentence, independent personal pronouns function much like nouns.
Subject: Since the verb endings identify the person, a pronominal
subject is usually redundant, and may be omitted in the literary
language except for emphasis: (ман) ту-ро намешиносам
> Л.1 \ I jy/I don’t know you’. In the spoken register they
appear more frequently; and are not necessarily emphatic (except
for the demonstratives in and on, which are inherently emphatic,
and thus occur less usually in subject position: cf. он намешавад
j,7, j n ‘that won’t do’, намешавад jj .7, . it won’t do’.
Direct object: Being semantically Definite (2.17), pronouns take the
enclitic -ro. If there is more than one pronominal object (or a
noun and a pronoun), they may be joined by means of -u or va
before a single -ro: ман-у туро надиданд аДа^аД Ij^ j
‘they didn’t see you and me’.
Indirect object: ин-ро ба шумо медидам I * .7. ,\l „
‘I’ll give this to you’. Indirect objects generally follow
definite direct objects, but may precede other types (4.2): ба ман
(dialect, ман-ба) деч нагуфт ^_ut> (<_. j-o) <_ ‘he/ she
morphology: nominals
111
told me nothing’. In dialect, -ro may indicate the indirect instead
of the direct object: vaya guftam told him that...’ (2.10).
Inanimate-agent idioms: A few idioms expressing likes and dislikes
commonly involve the source of the feeling (even if inanimate) as
subject, and a personal nominal or pronoun as indirect object:
намоиш-нома ба мо писанд омад	л W._i L^. <t_a LoS
‘we liked the play’ (‘the play came pleasing to us’); ин фикр-и
шумо ба ман маък,ул нест  . ‘>	‘I
don’t care for this idea of yours’ (‘...is not reasonable to me’).
These should not be confused with impersonal idioms involving
the pronominal enclitics (2.30).
Objects of adpositions: аз ман напурс o-° j' ‘don’t ask me’;
мо кати биё!	L> ‘come with us!’ (2.24).
Modifiers: Pronouns form a limited range of izofat types:
(1)	Possession or affiliation (2.14): модар-и маро оварданд jjl—»
xLjjjI I j_a ‘they brought my mother’ (note that the combination
of man plus -ro requires the same contraction as the object pronoun
maro, even though this is a different structure); дарвоза-и он
бисер калон аст	jl j ... ? jl tjljjj ‘the gate is
huge’ (‘its gate’ would usually be unidiomatic in English, where
the context once established presumes the relationship; note that
(Tajik) Persian prefers to make it explicit with a “contextualizing”
anaphoric pronoun—cf. 4.1(7)).
Pronouns may modify a Specific NP (with yak, but not the
enclitic e\ see 2.12): як шеър-и y-po медонам I jjl j > Л
know one/ a poem of his’.
(2)	Partitive: бештар-и шумо(хо) (La)I « 4. j 4. . ‘most of you’,
хубтарин-и онхо-ро дидам ljL$4l	‘I saw the
best of them’.
(3)	With an infinitive or action noun, subject or object of the underlying
clause (2.15,4.15): аз он до гузаштан-и вай даркор La.jf jl
jl_£jj (_5j j ~ 4.Л < ‘he must pass through there’ (‘his passing...
obligatory’); халос кардан-и онх;о чй фонда дорад?
S jjb	‘what use is it to release them?’.
Head of a NP: The 1st person singular pronoun is the only one regularly
to add the izofat particle: ман-и бечора 6jl > >  ‘poor me’.
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The 2nd person singular is sometimes so joined: ту-и дехкон-и
бесавод jlj. mi _>._i jULaj^^S ‘you, an illiterate peasant’. The
other pronouns may have a specifying adjective, noun, or NP
juxtaposed: мо точикон-и имруз	U ‘weTajiks
of today’, шумо муллобача-хо La <t_о I * л, ‘you sons of
mullas’.
Predicative possessive pronouns: Possessive pronouns and pronominal
phrases, such as the English ‘mine, yours, his,’ etc., or ‘the owner’s’,
‘the institute’s,’ are usually expressed in Tajik by means of the
partitive phrase аз он-и Jl jl, lit. ‘from that of/ from among’,
with the appropriate modifier (pronoun or NP): ин туппй аз
он-и вай аст eu—J ji jl jjl ‘this hat is his/ hers’, оё
он бача аз он-и шумо-ст? ~ jf jl <t ? . jf |_,1 ‘is
that child yours?’, китоб-хо-и руи мез аз он-и китобхона
аст си-мЛ <U__.U£ jf jl j_>_a ^LaujUI ‘the books on the
table are the library’s/ belong to the library’. In subject position:
аз он-и ман куч,о будааст? Scu-U I j_o jT jl ‘where
might mine Ье?’;танхо як коргар кор мекард, баркаши-и
пунбадона аз он-и вай буд <j________________о jLU jL_S mSU I a \
jj_i (_5j jT jl <113 4 Ci i umSi Sj_i ‘only one worker was working;
his job was to extract the cotton-seeds’ (lit. ‘extracting the cotton-
seeds was his’, since the context of kor ‘work, job, task’ has
already been established).
A shorter version of this construction is used colloquially: вай
бача аз ман аст си—I	jl	‘that child is mine,’ аз ту
ку? S jS jl ‘where’s yours?’. In more literary style, the word
мол Jl—o ‘property’ replaces az on: ин пул мол-и шумо нест,
мол-и мардум аст сс—>1 Jj— JU	I,» a, JU> J^_. jj
‘this money is not yours, it is the people’s/ belongs to the people’.
2.29 Pronominal Enclitics: Forms
This unstressed and unemphatic series is used in both literary and
colloquial Tajik; in contrast with SP, it is not more frequently used in
spoken than in written Tajik, and probably less than the independent
forms in all registers. The enclitics are added at the end of the NP,
morphology: nominals
113
after any plural suffix but before -ro if applicable, and written as part
of the word.
Fig. 2.29 Pronominal Enclitics
Isg.	-ам/-ям r’-\r	‘my’	Ipl	-aMOHZ-ямон j L> 1—\(j L>-	‘our’
2sg.	-aTZ-ят	‘your’	2pl.	-aTOHZ-ятон-	‘your’
					
3sg.	-atnZ-яш	‘his, her, its;	3pl.	-ашон/-яшон	‘their;
	l— \l_P—	their’		jjLil—\jLi-	his, her’
A euphonic -y- is inserted after a word ending in a vowel other than -a;
this appears as the Cyrillic variants beginning with я- and in Perso-Arabic
as : поятон ‘your foot/ leg’ (based on either of the variants
no or пой), гушх;оям ^1_$____i‘my ears’, зонуяш j-Sl j ‘his
knee’, руят (py jj or руй ‘your face’; but хонаатон,
etc., ‘your house’.
In Perso-Arabic script, the form with initial alifis written after a
word ending in the vowels -ior-a (vocalic h (jLij) «I- »
(“Iujj ‘my Russian (language) teacher’, jLI «lsLA ‘your house’. In
speech, and informal writing (in Cyrillic), the transitional -a- may be
omitted: дар миёншон ZmiyonSonZ чарог месузад ‘in their midst
burns a lamp’, or the postvocalic transitional -ya- (perceptible in both
scripts): дастх;оша боло кард	<i_iLb.xi „„j ‘he raised his
hands’.
The connotations of self-effacement, polite address, etc., available
to the plural pronouns (2.27) apply to the corresponding pronominal
enclitics.
2.30 Pronominal Enclitics: Functions
The main function of the enclitics is as NP modifiers, in much the
same ways as the independent pronouns in izofat.
(1)	Possessive or affiliative: китоб-ам ‘my book’, як мактаб-
амон ~ "  < _ ‘one of our schools’. The enclitics do not
bear stress, therefore they cannot express emphasis or contrast;
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this is a function of the independent pronouns. Contrast the two
sentences: падар-и ман омад, падар-и ту не <j______<J j-a jj_>
jj_i ‘my father came, yours didn’t’; падар-ам омад,
модар-ам не	Л ‘my father came, my mother
didn’t’.
(2)	Partitive: баъзе-амон jl n_i .A* । \jL>Iu <Ai i ‘some of us’, яке-
ашон jI—j.	‘one of them’ (persons). In the 3rd
person, the plural enclitic is used only for rational beings (persons
and, sometimes, horses or other higher animals); for most inanimate
beings and abstracts, -am I- is used (with sg. verb agreement):
ана рузномахо-ятон, бештар-аш тоза аст 4___________oLsjjj «иI
cu-lJ tjL (ji j л .7, _i > < jLIjLa ‘here are your newspapers; most of
them are new’.
(3)	After an infinitive or other action noun, as the underlying subject
or object: Зайнаб, омадан-ат нагзу рафтан-ат бад-дия
j jJ-jU .xjJij-oT <_> Ъ j ‘Zaynab, when you come
it’s good, and when you leave (us) it’s bad’ (lit. ‘your coming [is]
good...’; for -diya, see4.10); чанд руз дар биёбон гаштан-ам-ро
хикоя кардам	Ij^ * jUI—xj jj Jjj j ‘I
told (the story) of how I wandered about the desert for several
days’ (lit. ‘I narrated my several days’ wandering...’ (note-ro));
ба ёфт шудан-аш умед нест	j । J Л ousU «u
‘there is no hope of its being found’; cf. 3.37).
The enclitics also perform some other functions in common with the
personal pronouns, and a few distinctive ones:
Prepositional phrases. Pronominal enclitics are not attached to simple
prepositions, but may be appended to some prepositional phrases
that employ izofat (2.21; not, usually, the phrases listed in 2.22,
but including baroi, 2.20)): таг-аш чиз-е набуд _i (ji-Ss
jj_________jJi ‘there was nothing under it’; ин-ро бароят овардам
cj-J j-j IjJ-J ‘I brought this for you’. Note that ‘you’ is
unstressed, hence incidental; to express T brought this for you/ for
you, 1 brought this’, the appropriate formulation would be in-ro
baroi tu ovardam or baroi tu inro ovardam.
Direct object. Enclitics are usually attached to the end of a transitive
verb, without the object marker-го: дидам-атон	‘I saw
morphology: nominals
115
you’, ман ба касалхона овардам-аш <i_Ll__________< ,J ,<<1 , j „
j jl ‘I brought him to the hospital’. In the case of a Complex
or Composite verb (5.16-19) the enclitic may be attached to the
non-verb component, or to any suitable constituent preceding the
VP: аз пеш-и сарой берун-аш карданд	. jl
jjaj ‘they expelled him from the court’.
Note that any emphasis is on the action (‘I did see you’) or the
agent/ subject (‘I was the one who brought him/ her/ it/ them
(things)...’), not the patient/ object.
In spoken Tajik these forms may further add -a, a reflex of the
(redundant) object marker -ro (and incidentally elide the verb-final
consonant and initial vowel of the enclitic): didam-ta ‘I saw you’
(familiar), megiran-sa (me-gir-and-as-ro) ‘they’ll catch him’.
Indirect object. Joined usually to the end of the verb, the enclitic may
represent a prepositional phrase beginning with ba ‘to’ or baroi
‘for’: гуфтам-аш ‘I told him’, х;аёт ниъмат-и зиёд расонд-ат.
Дигар камабудй намонд-ат	jL j ^1 q ~	.-.I .
cuaSLoJi 1 a ‘life has brought you many benefits. You
no longer lack anything’ (lit. ‘no shortage is left for you’). As in
its role as direct object, it may also be joined to the subject or
another word preceding the VP: х;еч кас-аш илтифот-у рах.м
намекард	j c^Li-kJI	‘nobody showed
any concern or compassion for him ’
Similarly, a pronominal enclitic attached to the thing possessed
may also express temporary or alienable possession by a person:
Safar pul-as bosad agar, metiyam-ta ‘if Safar has (any) money,
I’ll give it you’ (‘if Safar to-him is money’; cf. dar, 2.19, and
nazd-i, 2.21).
Impersonal idioms. A special case of the pronominal enclitic as indirect
object is to mark the person affected by verbs used impersonally
or quasi-impersonally to express the onset of an emotion, perception
or ; it is attached to the noun or adjective denoting the experience:
ба х;ол-и у рах,м-аш омад j—Л	jl JL^ <l_> ‘she felt
sorry for him’ (‘for his state pity came to her’); хоб-ам меояд
-^^‘1 feel sleepy’; хоб-аш гурехт	ilj_i.
‘he could not/ cannot sleep’ (‘sleep escaped him’), тоб-ам гурехт
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£_,Ll ‘I couldn’t/ can’t stand it’ (‘endurance [has] escaped
me’). In these last two, the enclitic is to be interpreted as ‘from
[me]’, whereas in хоб-ам бурд jj_> ‘I fell asleep’ (‘sleep
took me’; маро хоб бурд	<_Jj i. Ij о is a variant), it is
evidently a direct object. All these constructions are quasi-
impersonal, since the abstract noun is technically the subject.
Fully impersonal, and capable of expansion, is the construction
with the adjective хуш j_S. ‘good, pleasant’: имруз падарам
ба кор кардан хуш-аш на-меояд jL_S <_>
I ? л jpt, J,jA ‘my father doesn’t feel like working today’ (‘...by
working it does not come pleasant to him’); ба ин хуш-атон
меояд? S ajI___i—o jl~ (3-iL-i ‘do you like it?’ (cf. SP az —
xos-[am] mi-ayad).
Not at all impersonal is (ба) хотир-ам/ -и ман омад/ расид
л . ...j \j_oT j-LLA jJaL-i. (<-_>) ‘I remember/ recall’: the
recollection, whether in the form of a nominal or a complement
clause, is the subject, and the phrase ba xotir-am means simply ‘to
my memory’. (Cf. also the inanimate-agent idioms using personal
pronouns as indirect objects, 2.28, and ma ‘qul, 2.41.)
Possessive/ affiliative NP. In Northern dialects, the 3rd person enclitic
(sg. or pl.) replaces izofat in a Turkic-type NP structure also
involving a colloquial reflex of -ro: ин мард-а китоб-аш
J " < 6j‘this man’s book’ (for kitobi in mardf, хона-хо-я
сохиб-он-аш tju'il । -».L—a <t_> La<uLL ‘the owners of the houses’
(for sohibon-i xona-ho; 2.18).
Anaphoric pronoun. When the modifier of a possessive-type NP is
preposed, as in a topicalized sentence (4.1(8)), or a Relative clause
(4.45), a pronominal copy, or anaphor (most frequently the 3rd
person pronominal enclitic) may interpret its grammatical function
at the appropriate later point: духтар ном-аш Зебй бошад
дам, худаш безеб буд	j_4,L	al_Lj ~
___________и ‘though the girl’s name was Zebi [‘beautiful’], she
herself was plain’ (‘the girl, her name...’ for nom-i duxtar ‘the
girl’s name’; this construction should not be confused with the
similar one above, which adds -ro to the first element).
In a Relative clause: ондое, ки манфиат-ашон бо манфиат-и
morphology: nominals
117
амир якест... j_j—cl mj-L * U ^1 л a °.1 j ~.T
‘those whose interest is one with the emir,..’ (‘those
thattheir interest...’).
Reduced relative clause. In a usage similar to the above, the 3rd
person enclitic may serve to bind a more complex NP: зан-и
му-яш сафед ... d j ‘the white-haired woman’, мард-
и дандон-аш тилло yLL	I jSj jj о ‘the man with the gold
tooth’. (The equivalent construction in SP is the compound
adjectival izofat, as zan-i mu-safed or mard-i tillo-dandan: see
5.8, and cf. 3.43, under Nominalizations.)
Contextualization. An important idiomatic use of the 3rd person enclitic
-am (jb- is to link an entity in focus to a recently established
context, somewhat in the manner of a partitive construction. In
the coordinate sentence sequence, Авозхода ду писар-и хурд
дошт, калон-аш Низомхода ном дошт э ...» jj <u=Jjljl
cu-iilj 4_aJ	.cxj-ilj j‘Avozkhoja had two
young sons; the elder (one) was called Nizomkhoja’, a true partitive
(for humans) is excluded since the pronominal enclitic is singular,
not plural; it refers to the two sons as a collective, or rather to the
general situation in the first clause that gave rise to the distinction
in the second (‘the elder in the context’). Similar are хуб-аш
инаст, ки......‘the good thing (about it) is
that...’, ин-аш пунбадонахо-ро ба замин меандохт, дигар-аш
мола мекард	« j <_> ILa<l>Ij<i__?	\I
«lJL-o (ji‘this one tossed the cotton-seeds onto the
floor, the other (one) crushed them’ (referring to a mechanized
sequence of operations).
2.31 Demonstratives
Literary Tajik has a binary deictic distinction, between ин j_>l ‘this’,
to indicate something near, and он <jT ‘that’, indicating something
distant. Demonstrative pronouns and adjectives are identical in form.
As adjectives they are preposed and invariable: ин шах,р j д -4, jj I
‘this town’, ин шах;рх;о La_>_$—i j-J ‘these towns’; он зан JJ <jT
‘that woman’, он занон j jl ‘those women’. As pronouns they
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may take plural suffixes: индо I__>1 ‘these (things, people)’, онхо
‘those (things, people)’.
The spoken language has a third term, вай ‘that’, identical in
form with the 3rd person singular pronoun vay ‘he, she, it’ (2.27; note
that both onho and vayho ‘they’ are also part of the personal pronouns
paradigm). Vay is generally interchangeable with on: вай кор jlS
‘that matter’, вай мардхо Laj_>-o ‘those men’, вайхо L^jj‘those
(things, people)’. In some dialect contexts, however, it indicates an
object or time closer at hand: к,ин будагист вай кор _______________Ь
jl_£ Lgj !j ‘must be hard work/ a tough job, that’ (i.e., the
work just mentioned); вай хафта идора-и дамоа мерам [меравам]
[fjj <_*-“] f j л *<-^1 л > ftjbl < "i а д> (35 ‘this week I’m going to the
village soviet’.
Figurative use. Referring metaphorically to points in time, ин
usually indicates present or future, он jT past time: ин тарх-и шумо
I » Л, j_il this plan of yours’ is likely to designate a proposal for
the future (or one being discussed at the time of speech), whereas он
тарх-и шумо I л, ( j_L jl ‘that plan of yours’ would refer to a past
idea, or one (even for the future) that was discussed in the past.
Similarly, ин referring to a person tends to be specific and
actual: ба ин кас,... ки ба ту ёрманди-и калон расонда-анд... «и
...xJ	jyLS ^аД-ajL j-T<u <lS jjjf ‘to this person, who
has rendered you great assistance...’ (polite plural; see 2.28, 3.4); whereas
он jl tends toward the generic and universal, being used for the
gnomic ‘one who/ he who/ whoever’ in general and hypothetical
pronouncements: он, ки ба мо дастдарозй кунад... I——5 jl
... ^jl j,'~, ‘he who/ anyone who oppresses us...’.
Compounds. Ин and он jT are fairly weak demonstratives, and
may function virtually as definite articles. They are often intensified
by prefixation of the emphatic particle хам- -^_л: хамин род дуруст
аст .-I	...j,' б1 j j; л д> ‘this road is [the] right [one]’ (hamin as
adjective); хамин рох-и дуруст аст	б1 j j^ut ‘this is
the right road’ (hamin as pronoun). A dialect form хавай ^j-л (ham+vay)
‘that very [one]’ also occurs; other colloquial variants include /i/, /ami/,
/amu/ (for in, hamin, hamori).
Ин j_>l and он jl and their intensified forms хамин jj ‘this
morphology: nominals
119
very/ same [one]’ and хамон jLu> ‘that very/ same [one]’ combine
with qualifying and quantifying prefixes to form complex demonstra-
tives and adverbs. From чун ‘as, like, similar to’ (2.19) come
(хам)чунин J j 'i » Д' \ and инчунин j I ‘ so, such; thus,
likewise’: вай ба чунин дарор омад, ки...	j1-»-5	lsj
...<lS ‘he came to an arrangement whereby...’ (lit. ‘such an arrangement
that...’, an adjective); чунин аст фарк-и ман-у фарк,-и ту j 
З-й J 3-й ‘such is the difference between me and you’
(a pronoun); инчунин касоне, ки ба cap буридан махкум шуда
боШаНД J IL1	л	J—iuj 4_i	‘*1	I
‘such persons as were condemned to be beheaded’ (an adjective);
амак-ам ба талвоса афтод, ман хам инчунин д  !j_Ll <i_i „ <-
j; ~i jl ф-о < jLi-al ‘my uncle fell into despondency, and I like-
wise’ (an adverb; for the conjunction, see 4.12). Essentially synonymous,
ончунон jl ‘J is found only in poetry.
For quantifiers чандин	чандон jlл ин дадар <j_J
jxS, он дадар jjJa jT, see 2.47 and 2.52; for ин ч;о I ’ J, ин тавр
jjd-. l il, etc., see Adverbs (2.46).
2.32 Reflexive and Emphatic Pronouns
The only reflexive pronoun in common use today is худ j‘(one)-
self’. This is used for all persons, but may be specified by the addition
of the pronominal enclitics (2.29); it functions as a reflexive, a possessive,
and an emphatic pronoun.
Reflexive: Since the personal ending of the verb will usually identify
the person, xud alone suffices. It accepts prepositions and, when
taking the place of the direct object, the enclitic -rcr. ба худ
биёед! !j -x-jI jj i. <l_i ‘pull yourself together!’ (‘come to
[your]self’); ин кор-ро барои худ кардааст ‘he did this for
himself’; худ-ро шустанд ... Л, Ijj‘they washed (them-
selves)’.
In everyday use, however, and especially in speech, xud is
usually supplemented with one of the (unstressed) pronominal
enclitics: худ-ам-ро наме-шиносам магар?
<? _^_o «. . ..Iл, ‘Don’t (you think) I know myself?’; аз худ-ашон
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метарсанд ,Ci	jl ‘they fear themselves’.
Possessive: As the modifier in a possessive or affiliative izofat phrase,
xud refers back to the subject; colloquially, this is usually
supplemented with the corresponding enclitic: мо дафтар-и
худ(амон)-ро хдмрох; дорем о Iа_л I	э Т aj Lo
jh‘we have our notebook(s) with us’; ман хурок-и худ(ам)-ро
овардам jjT I	jj___<j_a ‘I’ve brought my (own)
food’. This need not be emphatic, unless the context suggests it:
(ту) бо кор-и худат машгул бош Jj * Л. n jLS L (yi)
(jiL ‘(you) mind your own business’. When the possessor is not
the subject of the sentence, possessive xud(-am, etc.) is emphatic:
цалам-и худам шикает Л, j>-La ‘my own pen broke’
(not somebody else’s; note that *qalam-i xud sikast is meaningless,
since xud here is unidentifiable).
Scope: If possessive xud attaches to a third argument in the sentence,
e.g., a locative phrase, a personal enclitic is obligatory to avoid
ambiguity: Лутфия-ро дар хона-и худ дидам jj I э <i—j a U I
jLsLi. means either ‘I saw Lutfiya in my own house’ or
‘...in her own house’, whereas dar xona-i xudam or dar xona-i
xudas is unambiguous.
In the 3rd person, possessive худ jj i. and худаш jj—L/
худашон jLijmay substitute unambiguously for enclitic -am
(ji- /-ашон jL-ii- to resolve a possible conflict of scope. Com-
pare these sentences:
(1)	бародар-и у-ро/ вай-ро кушт	—£ IjcsjVjj1 j-?
‘he (A) killed his (B’s) brother’.
(2)	бародар-аш-ро кушт cj Л.	‘he (A) killed his
(A’s or B’s) brother’.
(3)	бародар-и худ(аш)-ро кушт  Л, < I	‘he
(A) killed his (A’s) brother’.
In this important disambiguative use, xud is not necessarily
emphatic. Where the context is unambiguous, either pronominal
may be used: ощо бо мехдат-и худ/ мехнат-ашон зиндагй
мекунанд j'i’Xj л j jl Л,У'-^	L L^>T ‘they
live by their labor’.
Emphatic: There are two ways in which xud may emphasize the
morphology: nominals
121
identity of a NP: either as the head, with a noun or pronoun
specifier in izofat construction: худ-и муаллим ^_L»__a j‘the
teacher himself’, худ-и ту j-L Jj_____‘you yourself’; or as the
specifier, juxtaposed after the NP: муаллим худ(аш) 1«
j-A, ту худат	j-S (with a pronoun in this position,
the enclitic is usually added): шумо худатон кистед? I______о__Д
S J’s jLjjA ‘who are you, exactly?’
This emphatic xud(as, etc.) may drop its noun or pronoun and
itself become the subject, once its identity is contextually estab-
lished: худ(аш) аз сохиб-аш хушёртар аст jl
-Iyj jI_i u,jJb	।sLa ‘|the dog] itself is more intelligent than
its master’.
The identity of the possessor is emphasized when xud plus the
corresponding enclitic, as the possessive pronoun, refers back not
necessarily to the sentence subject but to its possessor: see калам-и
худам шикает с-i..X Л,	‘my own pen broke’, above.
Idioms using xud include: аз cap-и худ	jl ‘independently,
of one’s own volition’: у аз cap-и худ зиндагонй мекунад yl jl
с.<_, „ j j‘he lives as he likes’; худ ба худ/ худ аз
худ jj-A jl jj j‘automatically, by [it]self’; чизе-ро аз
худ кардан	jjA jl I ‘to adopt, assimilate, appropriate,
make s.t. one’s own’: ин хунар-ро нагз аз худ кунед I jj \ a j-J
jI Jis ‘learn this skill/ craft by heart’.
The possessive reflexive хеш	‘(one’s) own’ appears only
in elevated style: у аз афъол-и хеш пушаймон шуд jl jl
xi jl n _i.n । uLuji. ‘he regretted his actions’. It survives in its nomin-
al meaning, ‘kinsfolk’, in the collocation хешу таборон j _________A.
jl jLl ‘kith and kin, one’s family’.
2.33 ‘Other’, and Reciprocal Pronouns
‘Other’ is the noun and adjective дигар jLj, occurring in a variety of
constructions. As an adjective it follows the head noun in izofat.
мардум-и дигар jLj j_o ‘(the) other people’. It may be followed
by possessives and/ or the enclitic -ro: хона-и дигар-аш-ро фурухт
cnA.jj_s I	LiLi. ‘he sold his other house’, or be Indefinite or
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Non-Specific (2.7): (як) мусофир-и дигар-е омад j Ы (-£-’)
j----оТ ‘another traveler came’, (як) рузнома-и дигар-е-ро
мехонам	I	Si—olsjjj (‘-^7?) ‘I’m reading another
newspaper’. In these cases, ‘other’ means ‘different’; ‘another’ in the
sense ‘one more’ may be expressed as як рузнома-и илова бар
ин^1 о4—aLjjj u<Lj lit., ‘extra to this’; cf. ilova, 2.22, or
боз (хам) як рузнома 4-oLjjj	jL (see boz, 2.46).
In certain common phrases, the Split izofat is preferred (2.11):
як-е дигар	‘another one, someone else’, кас-е дигар
‘someone other/ else’, баъз-е дигар . a « , ‘some
other(s)’, чанд-е дигар jXjj ‘several/ a few others’. In other
phrases it is conventionally preposed: дигар хел J . < ‘another
sort [of]; another way’ (also ба тавр-и дигар jj_L<l_>), дигар
бор jL as well as бор-и дигар j-SLj jL ‘once more, again;
next time’.
As a pronoun, digar may take plural suffixes and join partitive
constructions: дигарон/ дигархо гуфтанд c.~ ° < La\ jI
‘the others said...’; баъзе мегуянд.., дигархо-е мегуянд... .А «
<...xkj^S.^j-а ‘some say..., others say...’. In an
established context, ‘the others’ is likely to be contextualized as digar-
ho-yas, i.e., ‘the others of them’, where -[y]a^ refers to a non-human
plurality (cf. 2.30, 2.39): як-е аз себхо пусидааст, дигар-аш хуб
аст	j-A	<йи-—1 & j j ...,5-> L^_i_a_cu jl ‘one of the
apples is rotten, the others are good’.
In poetry, digar may be written  Sj in Perso-Arabic. Note the
idiom руз-и дигар	Jjj ‘(the) next day’. Other uses of digar
can be found under Adjectives (2.40) and Adverbs (under Time, 2.46).
Reciprocal pronouns. Two reciprocal constructions use digar.
якдигар/ як [...] дигар ‘one another/ one [...] another/ the other’, and
...хамдигар ‘each other’ (often with a pronominal enclitic). The
pronouns may function as direct or indirect object, prepositional object,
or (possessive) modifier in a nominal izofat. пас-и якдигар саф
кашидем _> Л. <s. i	‘we lined up one behind the
other’; хамдигар(-ашон)-ро мешиносанд I j(jl______________________o_a
у, ...I Л, a ‘they know each other’.
The adverb хам ^_a (2.47) may function alone as a reciprocal
morphology: nominals
123
pronoun after a preposition: бо хам рафтем j jU L ‘we went
together’, аз хам чудо шуданд 1ла. jl ‘they parted’.
2.34 Interrogatives
There are seven basic Interrogative pronouns, three of which also precede
the NP as determiners or specifiers; two of the latter combine with
other words to form Interrogative phrases. (See also Questions, 4.7).
кй <t_£ \(_^ ‘who?’ behaves like a personal pronoun, filling the same
sentence slots and acquiring the same grammatical adjuncts: имруз
кй омадааст?	jjj—«I ‘who came today?’, ин
мард кист? *?-.....< jj_a (j_>l ‘who is this man?’ (for the verb
contraction, see 3.7); бо кй харф зада будем? аз j	L
‘whom did we speak with?’; ki may take plural suffixes
(usually -ho): ки-хо буданд? S 1_л<—£ XLa^ ‘who were
they?’ or ‘who-all/ what persons were there?’; ки-хо-ро дидед?
S ajxjj I ‘who-all did you see?’.
As a possessive: саг-и ки-ро тур гуфтем? I э
л, ' ~ j < ‘whose dog did we shoo away?’ (prov., i.e., ‘whom have
we/1 offended? I did nothing wrong’); ин либос аз он-и кист/
ки-хост?	< jT jl 3-J ‘whose clothes
are these?’ (depending on whether the clothing appears to belong
to one person, or more than one).
In Cyrillic, кй is distinguished from its unstressed
homophone ки 4_____$ (‘that’, the subordinizer; 4.15) by a macron
over the vowel; in Perso-Arabic script, it may also be written as
and disambiguated by the context.
чй «co. X^j-a- ‘what?’, as a pronoun: чй шудааст? Sex-^l i 4_a.
‘what has happened?’ он чист?	jT ‘ what is that?’, аз
чй фахмидед? S ~a «La. jl ‘how do you know?’ (lit. ‘from
what did you realize [it]?’). In Perso-Arabic orthography, 4_a. is
the usual form of the word; for the contraction <r.i...i _>> see 3.7. As
the object, ci does not usually take -га чй гуфтед? 4_^.
S л , ~ aj < ‘what did you say?’; however, in a sarcastic question,
where suppressed knowledge is imputed to the interlocutor and ci
is thus Specific rather than Non-Specific (2.8), -ro may emphasize
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the challenge: ман чй-ро медонам? -л- a I ‘what
do I know/ what am I supposed to know (— that you claimed, or
hinted, I [should] know)?’; compare the “innocent” rhetorical
question, ман чй медонам? j n <Lo. ‘what do I know/
how should I know?’ (see also он чй, 4.46, under Selective
relatives).
As a determiner, ci means ‘what -/ which -?’, referring to
things or persons. Except for fixed expressions such as чй ran
аст? *?.-  ..I	‘what’s the matter?’ (lit. ‘what talk is it?’),
the NP that follows ci is usually provided with the (Specific)
enclitic -e: чй офат-е бар cap-и ту афтод?	j_j l_ys_iT
S jkLal jS ‘what disaster has befallen you?’.
This same construction (with a noun or NP) is used for
exclamations: чй офат-е бар cap-и ман афтод! j_i lt?
। d ~ol j________uj ‘what a disaster has befallen me!’; чй дуст-и
вафодор-е доштаед! !a-J< T AIj j!jL_aj	‘what a
loyal friend you have!’; with an adjective alone, there is no enclitic
-e: бахор чй нагз аст! !>-^J j_i-i <t_a. ‘how lovely is the
spring!’, шумо чй мехрубон хастед! ! л j	a	«Са.
‘how kind you are!’ (also чй кадар...; for this and other com-
binations, see 2.35).
кадбм f Ij___к ‘which (one)?’ asks to specify a member of a limited
class. As a pronoun, kadom therefore requires suppletion by a
partitive izofat phrase or a pronominal enclitic: бо кадом-и инхо
I a .1 L ‘with which of these/ them?’; кадом-ашон омад?
S j__oT jl Л, aI \ < ‘which (one) of them came?’ (pl. enclitic for
humans, 2.28); кадом-аш-ро медихй?	j—о	S
‘which (of them) will you give?’ (sg. enclitic for non-humans). A
partitive phrase with az is often linked to its antecendent with
izofat. нигох кунед,.. кадом-и аз инхо зебо-тар-аст? б1_£д
...j-l . . j 1 д> I jl  » »'< ‘take a look: which of these is
more beautiful?’. To specify more than one person, kadom may
take a plural suffix: кадом-хо-ямон? S	a£‘which [ones]
of us?’.
As an interrogative determiner, kadom makes the NP Specific,
so it may add the enclitic -e (esp. for plurals): кадом духтар,
morphology: nominals
125
кадом як?	‘which girl, which one?’; шумо
ба кадом мамлакатхо-е сафар кардед? ^Ij_________I - л,
S j а ... u-jLft.z.Xl.a л ‘which countries have you traveled
to?’.
A poetical variant is кадомин j_j__о I j_S. For kadom as an
indefinite determiner, see 2.36.
чанд J-j-a. ‘how much/ many?’ as an adjective is juxtaposed to a
singular noun: чанд бор рафтед? S »	'« j jL j 'i-^ ‘how many
times did you go?’; чанд вацт дорем? cj-Sj ‘how
much time/ how long do we have?’ (see further, 2.36, 2.49). As an
adverb it follows the item questioned: равган чанд аст? (З-с. j j
...I л ' ‘how much is the oil?’; when asking a price, the
compound adverb чандпулй	‘how much money?’ may
be used: тарбуз-хо чандпулй шуд? S j—i	Laj-Jj-S
‘how much do the watermelons cost?’
куч,6 I_a__£ (an adverb) ‘where, whither?’: вай (дар) кучост?
Ц.1 -X (‘where is he/ she/ it?’; ба кучо меравед? 1 ^.5 «и
Sajjj—j___» ‘where are you going?’; он-ро аз кучо доред, дар
кучо ёфтед? S л j~ iU ЦХ	LaX JI IjjT ‘where did
you get that (from), where did you find it?’. Colloquially, kujo
may be pronounced /gujo/.
Kujo serves also in rhetorical questions that ironically contrast
two incompatible situations: ту кучо, инч,о кучо? < I_=>_£
SI < I ‘what are you doing here?!’ (i.e., in such a place);
ИбрОХИМ КУЧО-ВУ ИСЛОМИЯТ КуЧ,О? .-ij nYL^ul j I
SI < ‘Since when has Ibrohim been a [pious] Muslim?’ (‘where
[is] Ibrohim and where being a Muslim?’; cf kay below).
A literary and dialect variant is ку? S jX. commonly used only
for locational questions, without the copula: бибиотун ку?
S jX ;	 ‘where’s the schoolma’am?’. Colloquial канй
in addition to its function as a particle (see 4.7, 4.8), means
‘where?; like ku, it does not require the copula: чура-ат канй?
jjj».‘where’s your friend?’.
кай (an adverb) ‘when?’: кай расидед? то кай мемонед?
S ' > '! а , а L S л -л  ...j ‘when did you arrive? till when/ how
long will you stay?’. Kay may be used ironically, as a general
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rhetorical interrogative: ту кай медонй, ки мухтоцй чй? ys
S(_fa.	‘since when do you have any idea
of what it means to be poor? (‘when do you know what penury
[is]?’)-
чаро I ‘why?’: чаро наомадй? _________________olj> Ij_a. ‘why didn’t you
come?’; ондо чаро мемонанд? S зЛ31_о1_{_о IL$_iT ‘why are
they staying?’.
2.35 Interrrogative Phrases
With чй \<i_a. are combined common nouns to form interrogative
phrases: чй кас-е	чй касон	‘what person(s)’, i.e.,
‘who?’; чй вахт cj-Ьj <t_a. ‘(at) what time?’, i.e., ‘when?’; чй к,адар
jj——3 <-= ‘how much?’, asking about mass nouns: чй кадар
нон? SjL jjia. ‘how much bread?’; with a partitive phrase, in izofat:
чй кадар-и ohxo хозир... кор мекунанд? ...j-lsLx. Ц_1Т _>j_a
S ,,i \ n jl_£ ‘how many of them... are working at present?’ (cf. the
variant qadr, 2.45, under Little). Other phrases correspond to some of
the prepositional phrases listed in 2.22: аз/ ба сабаб-и чй? <u_i \ jl
(jja. <—«j ‘for what reason/ why?’ (cf. саго), дар бора-и чй?'й jL jj
‘what about?’.
In combination with several words meaning ‘sort, kind, manner’, ci
forms adjectival-adverbial phrases, asking either ‘what sort/ kind/
manner [of]?’ (preceding a noun) or ‘in what manner/ way?’, i.e.,
‘how?’ (preceding a verb). These are чй гуна j <чй хел
J-^A, чй навъ £	«La., чй тавр чй зайл J_aj «и чй гуна
хикоя? S «иКа. <U‘what sort of tale(s)?’ (adjectival, with a generic,
or Non-Specific noun); шумо чй хел хайвон-е-ро шикор мекунед?
S Jj'iSj л jlSLi I	J_l^. <t_a. 1 n Л, ‘what kind of animal are you
hunting?’ (adjectival, with a Specific NP as object); ин навъ мошин-ро
чй тавр таъмир мекунед? j__>__________«..*"> jj-k I _______il__а f
S ,< j 'X i n ‘how do you repair this sort of car/ a car like this?’ (adverb-
ial); and, as a predicate, the polite formulas ахвол-и шумо чй тавр
аст? Slxj-uuI jjL-e- ।«—<- Jlad ‘how are you?’ (lit. ‘how are your
conditions?’), шумо чй хел (хастед)? ". л) J_. A «La I « л.
‘how are you?’.
morphology: nominals
127
A phrase such as ин навъ/ хел паранда в Ji <\ £ j_i
‘this species/ type of bird’ almost always juxtaposes the nouns without
izofat. It may occasionally be found with izofat'. ин хел-и пур-кунанда
t> J_uk 3^1 ‘this type of complement’; in such cases, the catego-
ry itself is emphasized rather than the member—‘this complement type’
as a grammatical category, not ‘a complement such as this one’.
Of the five, гуна and зайл J_jj are no longer used as regular
nouns outside these idioms. Less frequently occurring synonyms are
чй тарица <f . and чй сон	(cf. also к,абил J_. . «,
2.19,	under az', and 2.).
The same construction is used (mostly with ci qadar and ci tavr)
for exclamations: чй цадар зебост ин манзара! 3-J .г vj j j
j U •, a ‘how lovely this view is!’, ин гул чй тавр хушбуй аст!
-I j л.jA. jj U 2- J^ о-1' ‘how sweet this flower smells!’.
2.36	Indefinite and Specific Pronouns: ‘Some — ’
Tajik has a large repertory of so-called indefinite and universal pronouns,
specifiers and adjectives, produced from combinations of no more than
a dozen elements. Those commonly translated as ‘some; some — ’ may
be divided loosely into (1) Those generally adhering to the NP syntactic
category here called Specific (2.7), which take the Definite Object
marker -ro, and may also be translated as ‘a certain one; certain —’;
and (2) Those in the category called Indefinite, which do not regularly
take -ro, and translate also as ‘some — or other’. “Indefinite” pronouns
in the first category frequently accept the Indefinite-Specific enclitic -e
and sometimes flout the rule about -ro, so that they are not to be
classed exclusively as Specific in nature; these are the ones examined
in the present section. There are, however, a number of pronouns that
are explicitly Indefinite; these are illustrated in 2.37 below.
The Indefinite (more often, Specific) enclitic -e appended to one of
several basic substantives (in some cases with the optional juxtaposition
of як .< - ‘one, a/ an’) generates the series ‘some —’: як-е
‘someone’, кас-е (як) шахс-е \	‘somebody’,
(як) чиз-е ---------j-a. (X;) ‘something’, (як) чо-е
‘somewhere’, rox-e ^L-S ‘some time, sometimes’ (also roxo LaL-S,
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баъзе вадт cLij jAju). negative sentences, those with the enclitic,
rather than those withyaA, may be translated as ‘not... any, no —
касе наомад j—»L o ц. S ‘no one came’, чизе нагуфт-ам
—a<L ‘I didn’t say anything/ said nothing’, (ба) дое нарафтем
f.a T jj-L	‘we went nowhere/ didn’t go anywhere’ (як до
на-рафт-ем ~i aj_S L^. LL, for instance, could mean ‘(there was)
one place we did not go’).
They may where appropriate take plural suffixes, prepositions, or,
as objects, the enclitic -ro: (як) до-до-е сафар мекардаанд (. < )
Ll оj^LaL, ‘they traveled here and there’, бо шахс-е
дамрод рафт-ам	J j_a_A	\ j, L ‘I went with someone’, як
чиз-е-ро бо шумо мегуям п I « Л, U I ufL Til tell
you something’ (see bo, 2.19). Colloquially, чиз J ‘thing’ may be
reduced to чй in indefinite expressions: мебахшед, як чй пурсам,
мумкин?	JL < j _> ,7, \ j ‘excuse me, may I ask
something?’ (see also 2.37, under деч  д>)
‘Some’ as a general-purpose pronoun and adjective is usually
expressed by баъзе (initial stress), an Arabic loanword supplied with
the Specific enclitic -e\ it has become a frozen form, and as a pronoun
(referring to humans only) optionally takes the plural suffix -ho (stressed)
on the end: баъзе/ баъзе-дб мегуянд	La1_>.L» ? .A * >
‘some (people) say’. This may It may be followed by az and a partitive
phrase: баъзе(до) аз аъзо-ён jLLA_cl jl (La)u .A » । ‘some of the
members’; or by a pronominal enclitic: баъзе-ашон, баъзедо-яшон
jl .njLa L * j <jLil ц A ‘some of them’. As an adjective, it is
preposed to a plural noun: баъзе точикон	‘some
Tajiks’. Ba’ze may even be joined by izofat to a substantive or a
prepositional phrase (see 2.11): дар вак,т баъзе-и аз ондо-ро ба
баъзе-и дигар-ашон душман месохт Ijl $ 'Л jl L » । cljj j_a
j n	jI .ujLj .A j 4_j ‘he was always inciting some of
them against others’. A more literary alternative is бархе j_j. These
phrases are all Specific NPs, which require -ro as objects of the verb.
A few nouns of category may be used in the Non-Specific sense of
‘some’ as distinct from ‘others’: гуруд-е мегуянд, ки... I_f_&jj__<.
...<i_£ л	" ‘some saY that...’ (lit. ‘a group...’, though here no
self-identified organization is implied); як хел растани-до ин до
morphology: nominals
129
намеруянд xZjjj^j-a-L I % \,_iI L> i'i-u.j Jj.a.	[there are] some
plants [that] do not grow here’ (lit. ‘a species, a sort’; a Numerical NP,
xelfunctioning as a virtual classifier—see 2.50).
Several terms related to the interrogative чанд хЦ. (2.34) generate
quasi-numerical determiners: чанд ‘some, a little, a few’, якчанд
>?  ‘a little, a few, one or two’, and чандин	‘several’,
precede a (usually) singular NP: the sentence чанд сол пеш л ' -s
<_/. ‘a few years ago’ duplicates, with different intonation, the
question that it answers (чанд сол пеш? Sot. j-. JI_____л ‘how
many years ago?’, cf. 2.34). The answer can be semantically nuanced
by the affix accorded to cand'. якчанд об хает .г... a <_Л *
‘there is a little water’, якчанд нафар омаданд xixoT j-il х'. ‘а
few people came’ are positive assessments of the situation; чандин
бор jL> j ‘several times’, чандин хазор jl‘several
thousand’ are more specific and positive (cf. 2.45, under ‘Little’).
If the dependent NP is felt to comprise individuals, cand, candin,
and yoke and may be followed by a plural: якчанд бачагон ба хона
даромаданд xjXjTjj «C.LA <_> jI	‘a few children came
into the room’; Банокат, Хатлон... барин чандин вилоят-хо ва
шахр-хо-и обод-и серодам буданд ^хХа. J-jjj ...J5L1A
хх\$_>	. ... jLT ^1 a j д j j ‘there were several fertile
and populous provinces and towns like Banokat, Khatlon...’.
With the enclitic -e, cand may form a partitive phrase with az'
чанд-е аз рафицон jl a jl ^хЦ. ‘a few of [my] friends/ a few
of the comrades’; чанд-е аз моён jLL. j I ^x^ ‘a few of us’.
2.37	Indefinite Pronouns and Adjectives
The explicitly Indefinite pronominal adjectives ягон jLSL and кадом
(як) (-£-.) fix-S ‘some — or other, any — at all’, qualify a referent
unknown to the speaker (and usually, but not necessarily, to the listener);
they are juxtaposed before the NP, which may also take the (Indefinite)
-e. ягон руз ба хона-и мо мархамат кунед L» <u Jjj jlL
л . •< -.» -.j___a ‘please come and visit us some day’; ягон рох-и
халоей хает ё не? L	о I j ‘is there some/
any way of escape (or not)?’; вай ба кадом сабаб-е чавоб надод
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jljs (_,!о ? ,, „ j»|	4_, ‘for some reason he didn’t answer’; ин
овоза-ро кадом як пиразан падн кардааст	IjajljT <>?1
>"l^I аз(34-! jJj-xj ‘this rumor was [no doubt] spread by some old
woman’ (see Non-Witnessed mode, 3.21).
Common phrases formed on these are ягон/ кадом кас \jl_S_i
^1 aS ‘someone’, ягон/ кадом до Ц.	‘somewhere (or
other)’, (дар) ягон/ кадом вадт cj-Sj Ij_£\ (jL£_> ( jj) ‘(at) some
time (or other)’. (Cf. kadom ‘which?’, 2.34; this use of kadom is
distinguished by its not being an interrogative). Yagon followed by a
number expresses an approximation (see 2.49). These words are not
generally used in negative sentences (see х,еч g > -s, below), and do not
require -ro in object position.
Similar in application is a series of Turkic-Persian hybrids formed
on Uz. kim ‘who?’ plus Tajik simple interrogatives (hyphens in Cyrillic
are original): ким-кй ‘someone (or other)’, ким-чй
‘something (or other)’, кин-кадом ^la___$‘some — (or other)’,
ким-кудо I ? ‘somewhere (or other)’, ким-кай	‘some
time (or other)’: вай аз ким-чй норозй аст (_rubl jL	Jl
>-L^I ‘she’s unhappy about something’, ким-чй хел дорухо хуронид
а_Gl jj-i. La j j la J-xA ‘he administered some kind of medica-
tion’ (note that, as an Indefinite NP, the object here does not take -ro);
ба ким-кадом мадлис рафта буданд « ~ '«j о..1^ ~ ^1а_5^£
aJ>aj_i ‘they had gone to some meeting or other’; ким-кадом аз
тамошо-бинон jl'ijd Л,I n' jl ^la_£^ ‘some of the spectators’
(with a partitive phrase).
Note also the plurals, expressing even vaguer referents: ким-кудохо
Lal ‘somewhere or other, somewhere else’: вай ба об нигох
мекард, вале фикр-аш дар ким-кудо-хо буд *1 < ' ._.Т 
j j_j LaL^^ jj	и-l j * J ‘he was looking at the water, but
his thoughts were elsewhere’; ким-кайхо I j _ <-< ‘a long time ago,
ages ago’ (cf. 2.46, under Time).
2.38	Universal Pronouns: ‘Each, All, None; One’
The largest class of indefinite-universal pronouns and adjectives
comprises the trio, xap j-A ‘each, every’, хеч g _ д» ‘(not) any, none’
morphology: nominals
131
(in affirmative or negative sentences), and хама «La-A ‘every, all’.
x,ap j-A is an adjective, juxtaposed to a singular noun: xap руз j_a
Jjj ‘every/ each day’, xap гуна дарахт cXjj <\$X j_a ‘every
kind of tree’ (a Numerical NP, 2.50) in the loose sense ‘all sorts
of trees’; a more literal intention would use the partitive: xap
гуна аз дарахтон jLX. jj jl <t_LjX j_a ‘every species of tree’.
It may be intensified as кар як X_i j_a ‘every single —’: xap як
чумла-ро хонед!	Ij4 L -j. X_> j_a ‘read every (single)
sentence!’. The latter becomes a pronoun with the addition of the
enclitic -e: кар як-е дафтар-и худаш-ро овард jLjj ^^Xj j_a
jjjf I j (jiij‘each one brought his or her own notebook’. This
may be expanded into a partitive phrase: хар як-е аз моён j-a
jLLa у I ^X ‘each one of us’; similarly, дар кадом аз занон
jL j jl ^»IX j_A ‘each one of the women’.
Standard phrases include: хар кас j_a ‘everybody’, xap
чо(-е) (^jUa. j-a ,xap кучо L_=X j_a ‘everywhere’: баъд кар
кучо рафтем »_ ~ °j I < j_a ‘then we went everywhere’;
хар хел J-j____X j_a ‘eveiy sort, each kind [of]’: кар хел дору
пайдо-ст cUxu jjlj J-Х. j-a ‘every/ any kind of medicine is
available’.
In combination with ki, many of these form so-called indefinite
Relative pronouns, which conjoin either Relative clauses (4.46)
or, as Relative Conjuncts, other adverbial clauses (4.26); for xap
чанд j * ‘however (much), notwithstanding, although’, see
4.33; for xap rox ‘if (ever)’, see 4.34; for хар кас ^Xj-a
‘whoever’, xap тавр j~a ‘however’, etc., see 4.46).
Like hec, har combines with kadom (and cf. kim-kadom, 2.36),
in a partitive phrase introduced by either az or an izofav. xap
кадом аз духтурхо Lajj ~i Xj jl ^»IX j_a ‘each of the doctors’,
xap кадом-и мо ба соат нигох кардем Lu L IX jjt>
jX aIXs ‘each one of us looked at the clock/ [his] watch’ (note
the verb agreement with Ipl., ‘we’).
хеч a is an adjective and a pronoun, requiring a negative verb in
statements. As an adjective it may be intensified by addition of
the enclitic -e (Indefinite, hence without -ro in object position):
хеч кас нест - ' <jX a ‘there’s no one [here]’, хеч ran
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не и_л£ ^_д_л ‘no problem’, вай хеч тасаввурот-е надорад
jjlj-S ^j-jI jj---uxS g_d_A ^j ‘he has no conception’. It forms
combinations similar to har. хеч до/ хеч кучо g < а\1___=>. g *
1_=^ ‘nowhere’, хеч гох &LS g_ub, хеч вадт e^ij g_ut> ‘(at) no
time, never’; this may be abbreviated to hec: Москва хеч
нарафтаам	—ij_j g_>_A	—о ‘I’ve never gone/ been to
Moscow’. In this adverbial function it can be a general negative
intensifier: хеч мумкин нест о.., _i\ а g_xA ‘it is not at all
possible’.
It may combine with kadom in a double determiner (i.e., without
a following izofat, unlike har): хеч кадом савол бе давоб
намонд	<_Jj_a.	Jlj_uu g_xj>‘not a single question
was left unanswered’; or in a partitive (with az or izofat, or both):
хеч кадом-и онхо L^sT	‘none/ neither of them’; хеч
як-е аз шумо I—=—i у I g_. хеч як-и шумо g.»a
I л .и ‘none/ not one/ neither of you’ (for ‘neither — nor —’, see
4.13); бой y-po ба хеч кадом-и аз занхо-и худ надод
jlxL jj_i	jl g л д j I jjl ‘the rich man gave her to
none of his wives’. Хеч чиз g_j_A ‘nothing (at all)’ is reduced
in speech to хеч чй g.i_A, pronounced /hicCi/, as хеч яке
g_xA ‘nobody’ may be pronounced /hiSki/.
As a pronoun: хеч нагуфтам .' »< ' g . a ‘I didn’t say any-
thing’. As a negative reply, hec may be used alone: чй гуфтй?-хеч
g-xA-Su~< a ‘what did you say? —Nothing’; in a sen tence,
it requires a negative verb (4.1). See also under Adverbs (2.46).
хама 4—«.a is a pronoun, adjective and adverb. As an adjective, it may
be preposed with the singular for the same distributive sense as
har. хама до Ц. <_o_a ‘everywhere’, хама кас	‘every-
one’, хама чиз <_^а ‘everything, all’; but in this it is limited
to common phrases. As a pronoun it is widely used in izofat with
a noun or pronoun, singular or plural, to express totality: хама-и
мо Lo ‘all of us’, хама-и дунё Lpj a ‘the whole world’,
хама-и зан-хо-и дишлок jyl гг> La_a ‘all the women of
the village’. In this sense it may also take pronominal enclitics:
хама-амон jLJ <_^a ‘all of us’, хама-аш-ро бигир I j N a
j _<; ‘take it all, take the lot’. Alone, it means ‘all, everything’ or
morphology: nominals
133
‘all, eveiybody’ according to context: бай дама-po медонад j
lj<i___________zUb ‘he knows [it] all/ everything’, бай дама-ро
мешиносад j______mL I j4__________o_a ‘he knows [them] all/
everyone’.
The Arabic borrowing тамом j*Lajfinished, completed’ is sometimes
used as a pronoun synonymous with hama, in iwfat. тамом-и руз
Jjj j*Lb3‘alI day, the whole day’, тамом-и бошандагон-и дишлод
jyl j. a jIS ,<•. Л1 . ^Lo_i‘all (of) the inhabitants of the village’.
Informal ways of expressing ‘one’, the universal human, are by the
3rd person plural, ‘they’ (3.4), or the 2nd person (2.27, 3.4). A more
literary device is kas or odatn ‘(the) person’: дил-и кас зик, намешуд
j J	Jj ‘one was never bored’, аз шунидан-и дама-и
ин сафсата одам девона шудан-аш мумкин L_a_a jj _i\ Д jl
tjSLo-a	’.,|A 4_jl j_ij ^»jI	‘one could go crazy listening to all
this twaddle’ (‘from hearing... a person, his becoming-crazy [is]
possible’; see 4.1(8), Topicalization).
There are two conventional pseudonyms, a noun фалонй	—b
and a determiner фалон jyL3, by which one may allude to the name
or specifics of a person, place, time, etc., already mentioned or known,
but which one does not wish to name or characterize again: фалони-ро
тирборон карданд xijj-S	I ‘they shot you-know-
who’; агар фарз дунем фалон мард ба фалон ч,ой меомад...
... j—о!<>>j—s I ‘supposing a
certain man were to come to such-and-such a place...’.
ADJECTIVES
2.39	General Features
Tajik adjectives have various sources, ranging from the long-established
Persian and Iranian heritage through borrowings from Arabic, Russian
and the international lexicon, to a continuing process of derivation and
composition. There is consequently no morphological uniformity in
the corpus, though several classes of adjectives (which may have
additional functions) may be recognized by their form. Among them
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are those formed by suffixes such as -й and -hok lSLL- (5.4),
prefixes such as бо- -L or cep- -j  (5.6), Arabic participles with a
characteristic form, such as маълум jlx or мучрхид ' д>1 -Л Tajik
participles, easily recognizable, are all adjectives (though with several
other functions). This leaves scores of others without a distinctive
“adjectival” badge.
An interesting lexical semantic complex in Persian is that of the
variants boz, voz, vo, the meanings of which range selectively, in different
dialects and registers, through the adjective ‘open’ and the adverbs
‘back, again, still’ to a variety of idiomatic uses in Complex verbs (see
Indexes). In Tajik, the adjectives боз JL and во I j ‘open’ are generally
used predicatively: дар боз/ во шуд xi I j\jL> jj ‘the door opened’
(‘became open’); воз Jlj is additionally used attributively: бо
чашмхо-и воз jlj	L> ‘with eyes open’. More frequent are
forms of the verb кушодан jJxX ‘to open’: дар-и кушод <1 л.<
‘the open door’ (kusod also ‘wide, broad, expansive’ as in SP); як
дар-и баста, сад дар-и кушода jj <4	>jj ‘[as]
one door closes, a hundred doors open’ (‘...closed... open’, Past Participle
I; kusoda also ‘wide-ranging, clear’, and as an adverb).
Many adjectives and primitive nouns are identical: пир j »  ‘old;
an elder, senior’, чуддур j___1^. ‘pit, hollow; deep’, боло ‘high;
top’ (also an adverb, ‘up’). Derived adjectives may often function as
nouns: бухорой jl 4 । ‘Bukharan; the/ a Bukharan’, хунарманд
jAa‘skillful; artist’. Like nouns, adjectives (and adverbs) may be
negated with the prefixes но—L ‘un-, non-’ or гайри- j - A ‘other
than’ (see 5.4): но-дуруст jjL ‘untrue, wrong’, но-мард iL
‘scoundrel’ (‘non-man’), гайри-инсонй ^1'J ‘inhuman’.
Despite this lexical proximity, Tajik nouns behave grammatically
like nouns, and adjectives like adjectives. Adjectives are invariable:
they may not take a plural, or receive adpositions or markers of
definiteness, specificity, or case, in their own right. If one happens to
be at the end of a noun phrase, than such markers may coincidentally
be attached to it: себхо-и калон-е-ро хурд JjjA	....
‘he ate some big apples’; but they pertain to the noun, not the adjective
An adjective may be used as an attribute: гул-хо-и сафед д К
a _i ‘white flowers’; as a predicate: ин гулхо сафед аст I К
morphology: nominals
135
Ц.1 ' , i ... ‘these flowers are white’; and in some cases as an adverb:
тез гузашт ЛЛ < j ‘it passed quickly’. In no instance do they
vary for number, or show agreement with any other of the properties
of the noun. By exception, when they are themselves substantivized,
they stand for the deleted head noun as well as the attributes they
bring, and assume all the grammatical properties of nouns: дигар-он-ро
дид j_ij I j j I‘he saw the others’, ба камбагал-он дих,ед *l_>
.< .ал ,jyl* . л< ‘give to the poor’, сафед-хо-яш зебо-ст ^Ц^Сал
...I . >5 ‘the white ones are beautiful’ (lit., ‘the white |one|s of them’:
see 2.30, under Contextualization).
2.40	Attributive Functions
The principal matrix for an adjective used attributively is the Adjectival
izofat (2.11). In this NP, the Indefinite or Specific enclitic -e <_$-
usually attaches to the terminal element, i.e., the adjective: хона-и
калон-е $ a -.1 < ‘a big house’; but it may (in literary style, or
selectively in colloquial usage) attach to the first element, the noun, in
which case the izofat particle -i is omitted: кас-е дигар	S
‘someone else’. This structure is here termed a Split izofat.
A partial exception to the rule that adjectives do not agree in gender
or number with their noun is to be seen occasionally in older literature,
when an adjective modifying a plural noun or one that would be feminine
in Arabic is supplied with final -a <u- (standing for the Arabic feminine
ending in <_-). A few examples survive in frozen forms: забон-и
адаби-и хозира-и точ,ик	^jl jL J ‘modern literary
Tajik’ (earlier, the Arabicate adjective hozir ‘present(-day)’ in similar
collocations was made to agree with a feminine antecedent, such as
lugat ‘language’. Since in modern Tajik hozir has specialized as a
predicative adjective ‘ready’ and an adverb ‘now, presently’ (see 2.46),
the meaning ‘present-day’ is borne by this frozen form hozira\ cf.
адабиёт-и хоЗира c^La->jI ‘contemporary literature’).
When several adjectives modify the same head noun, they may be
joined to each other either by the izofat enclitic or the coordinating
enclitic -у (-ю/ -ву) j-: аз зер-и абрувон-и борик-и хилол-
монанд-аш	JyLa Ь jljI ‘from beneath her
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fine, crescent-shaped eyebrows’; деддонон-и дафобин-у балокаш
j	(jUULa.? wretched, downtrodden peasants’. The lat-
ter strategy is always adopted for adjectives of equal weight: сиёсат-и
идтисоди-ю интимой a V-J j ^al T ~al с, ...I _< ‘economic
and social policy’. The order of multiple adjectives tends to be from
general to particular (cf. the next preceding example), but is not rigid.
Compound adjectives sharing the same structure may elide their
common element if the meaning remains clear: Гаво до-е бас
хуш-бод-у даво буд I jjb 3 jLji3-A	a. I j_c ‘Ghavo
was a place of abundant fresh air and pleasant breezes’ (a Split izofat,
lit. ‘a place very pleasant-breezed and -aired’; two compound adjectives,
xus-bod ‘of pleasant breeze’ and xus-havo ‘of pleasant air’ have collapsed
after deletion of the common element xus).
Compound adjectives in attributive izofat may be restructured as a
reduced relative clause with a pronominal enclitic: солдат-и хуш-дад-у
домат-и чашмон-аш дадва-ранг cd-a I_______S 3 j___2	3___i. cd I '1  
xS-L j a34-5	‘a tall, handsome soldier with dark brown eyes’;
here the first two of the three composite adjectives (xus-qad ‘of pleasing
stature’,xus-qomat ‘of pleasing figure’) have collapsed as in the previous
example, while the third (qahva-rang ‘coffee-colored’), since it modifies
a different noun (‘eyes’, not ‘soldier’), is connected to the possessor of
the eyes by the possessive enclitic -as ‘his’. This construction, probably
influenced by a Turkic model, is a feature of Northern dialects that has
been adopted into literary Tajik (see 2.30). Other examples: корд-и
ду-дама-и даста-аш садафин jj аа 14 1	*1—0^3a a
double-bladed knife with a mother-of-pearl handle’; як шахс-и
овоз-аш хеле шинос-е  -I ’ *• I JI3I - л, ,< . ‘а
person with a very familiar voice/ whose voice was very familiar’
(here the whole NP is marked as Specific, by initial yak and terminal
-e); одамон-и ранг-и ру-яшон заб-зард jl_______i-езз jl__________«аТ
a j j	‘people with very sallow complexions’.
An adverb modifying an adjective precedes the adjective, in which
case a Split izofat is often preferred: ондо писардо-е бисер давон
буданд xLj3- jlз-dx jI 3	ЦрТ ‘they were very young
boys’. For greater emphasis, the adverb may precede the noun: адаб
одам-е сергап аст cd_uJ	»_t > <- ‘he’s an amazingly
morphology: nominals
137
garrulous fellow’. (For more on adverbial modifiers of adjectives, see
2.47).
Adjectives expressing sympathy, or a moral or aesthetic judgment
in an affective context, may precede the noun in a NP. In this case they
are juxtaposed without the. iwfat particle: бечора писар-ам & jl ? и
. ‘my poor boy’. Note that the adjective has been removed from
the rest of the NP structure, so that in the event of a Specific NP, the
quasi-article yak will precede the noun and any enclitic -e will follow
it: алойхида як писар дошт ки нобуд шуд j .<_> -£_> а а—-> jl г
aj_iL <l£	‘she had a wonderful son, who died’.
2.41	Predicative Functions
An adjective that is the predicate of an ascriptive sentence requires no
adjunct or agreement: занхо мехрубонанд a-lsUj—e—«	‘the
women are kind’. As shown here, in both Cyrillic and Perso-Arabic
scripts the copula (the enclitic form of the verb ‘to be’ as used in such
sentences: 3.6) is normally written as an extension of the NP (except
3rd sg. аст ‘is’ in Cyrillic).
Adverbial arguments. There is a class of “active” adjectives (often
originating in verbal participles) which express the subject’s activity,
stasis, or attitude relative to a vehicle, location, activity, etc.: one is
boarding or mounting, riding in, heading for, busy with, ready for,
pleased or displeased with, and so on. The associated preposition or
other connective may vary with the idiom, and even within the idiom
(and in Tajik it may differ from Standard Persian usage; noted here as
*SP). Passive or impersonal constructions may be better understood as
English active idioms. Here are a few of these “dynamic adjectives”
with examples of their contextual grammar.
гирифтор jCLi‘afflicted, troubled’, with iwfator ba —: ба таъна-
ву маломат-и шадид гирифтор шуд --------------------о j «с;« k <t_,
‘he underwent/ was the victim of harsh critic-
ism and reproof’; гирифторш ишк (шуда)аст ^Ls_4j_£
(aj-i) ‘he is/ has fallen madly in love’.
маппул	‘busy, occupied’: дар долибофй машгул-анд
j t A »	‘they are engaged in/ in the business of
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carpet-weaving’; бо адабиёт машгул шуд Jj i Л. n L>
Xi ‘he went in for literature’.
маъкул Jj i » ‘reasonable, sensible, acceptable, pleasing’: ба ман
бисер маъкул аст сь-^1 Jj a a_a jl j >t >=><_. ‘I like it very
much’; ба мо маъдул шуд/ афтид л Ы Jj " La_>‘we
like(d) it’. Either the adjective or the verb (or both) may be rendered
more tentative: ин-аш ба худам маъкул барин менамояд
Jj а« з k i ot. \ j Г this one seems like a good
one to me’ (‘this-of-them’, sing, personal enclitic for an inanimate
plural; 2.30). Cf. pisand.
мунтазир j-k ~ ‘waiting, expecting’: пагох ту-ро мунтазир
мешавем Л. _i n j з n <>lC ‘we will expect you to-
morrow’ (*SP; with izofat).
писанд л ‘pleasing, worthy’: ба ман писанд омад/ афтод/
шуд а—Л> \J 3 al \j__«Т л’| >'_» ‘I like(d) it/ him, etc.’ (cf.
ma’qul, and the verbal idiom ба ман мефорад jjL_ф-o-j'it
suits me, I like it’; the related adjective форам ^»_,1___a ‘pleasant,
sweet, delightful’ is mainly used attributively: овози форам
jljT ‘lovely voice’).
nyp j_> ‘full’: молхона бо гусфанд, сорбонхона бо шутур пур
буд jj_i _>_> _р_Л, L <C.LL jLjL-j ,,йа ...L «LSLkJL/the cattle
shed was full of sheep, the stable [full] of camels’; чашмон-и
модар-аш пур аз ашк буд aj_i. < Al 5I _>_> jjL_o 3I л a^
‘his mother’s eyes were filled with tears’; хона-и пур аз мехмонон
jULx^-o JI	‘a room full of guests’.
озим	—c ‘setting off, heading (for)’: озим-и Душанбе шудем
Л, 4._i \ .7.‘we set off for/ headed for Dushanbe’ (cf.
next).
рафтагор jL£-3—i j ‘going, setting off’: рафтагор-и сайр гардид
S	a—хм ^1 <~i—a j ‘he set off for a ride’; мо рафтагор-и
бозор шудем jI JL jLSs-i j U‘we set off for the market’;
мо ба кушкод-и С. рафтагор будем .	33!___a a <t_ I___о
j‘we were on our way to the village of S.’.
розй	bl j ‘content, satisfied, pleased’: аз додар-и худ рози аст
j jjA jjlj 5I ‘he is pleased with his younger brother’;
ба омадан рози аст .2.^1 j jj-oT <_ ‘he is willing/ agrees
morphology: nominals
139
to come’.
савор j I3-lu ‘mounted, riding’ (as a noun, ‘rider, horseman’): 6a acn
савор омадам _____________»T jl3___« mJ <_i ‘I came on horseback’;
фойтун савор шуд л Л. jl~._.l ь ‘he got into a carriage’;
ба/ дар ароба савор мегарданд aSjj**4*
‘they get into/ onto a carriage’; ба автобус савор шудам <_>
jl‘I boarded a bus’ (SP also with izofat).
тайёр jI j U хозир	‘ready, prepared’: ба ид тайёр-анд <l_i
jJijI j In ' j r ‘they are ready for the holiday’; ман ба имтидон
хозир-ам (»j-^sLa. j I n ~ J . ‘I’m prepared for the examina-
tion’ (cf. omoda, 2.18).
For adjectives used as adverbs, see 2.46; for complex and composite
adjectives, see 5.8, 5.12.
2.42	Comparison of Adjectives
Tajik adjectives form a comparative and a superlative by means of
suffixes; in addition, there are several ways of constructing similes and
varying the intensity of adjectives.
Comparative. Comparative adjectives are formed with the (stressed)
suffix -тар yi- : калон-тар _yi-iyl-S \yi ‘bigger, larger’, тоза-
тар yi bjLi ‘fresher, newer’. In addition to хуб-тар yic_>‘better’
(the regular comparative of хуб <_>j—A ‘good’), there exists бехтар
j " d ? ‘better’, though the absolute form бех <--> ‘good’ is no longer
found outside poetry and compounds. Of зиёд jL>j ‘much, many’ the
comparative 15 3иёдтар yijUy also бештар j-Д d, (the base form
беш   occurs only as an adverb) and зиёда aaUу зиёда аз дах
нафар ‘more than ten people’ (cf. 2.45).
Бартар yi‘superior’ lacks an absolute adjective, being related
to an older use of the adverb-preposition bar ‘over, above’; the borrowed
Arabic elative аъло yLtl ‘superior, excellent, first class’ lacks a com-
parative, whereas авлотар yi^jl \yi^У ‘preferable, excellent, best’
is used as an adjective in preference to its base form avlo, which
appears mostly in verbal phrases (e.g., авло донистан jl м. ilj у
‘to prefer’). Some adverbs also form comparatives (2.46).
In some Northern dialects the Uzbek comparative suffix -roq may
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be added after, or before, -tar: tez-tar-roq or tez-roq-tar ‘quicker’.
A comparative may be preceded by an adverbial qualifier: хеле
пурзуртар	‘much more powerful’; аз барф хам
сафедтар ys.i j а ...	jl ‘even whiter than snow’; рухсора-и
гулгун-и у боз гулгун-тар шуд	jl_> jl >.Jl ...
‘her rosy cheek(s) became still rosier’ (boz expresses a progressive
change; see 2.46). Like most adjectives, a comparative may be sub-
stantivized: пухта-тар-хо-яш-ро гундошта гиред ^L-jLa ~ 
I j ‘gather up the riper ones’.
Standards and criteria. The standard of comparison is introduced by
the preposition аз jl ‘from’: ин курта аз он хубтар аст/ хубтар
аз он аст cl^.1 jl jl \o^-J	jl jl <jul ‘this
tunic is better than that [one]’; the comparative may either precede or
follow the standard. Colloquially, when the comparative follows the
standard, the suffix may be omitted, even from an izofat NP: ин курта
аз он хуб аст cl^.1 <_>j—A jl jl <Oj_£ 3^1 ‘this kurta is better...’;
одам-е аз хар чиз зур аст jjj j—_<a. j_a jl ‘a man is
stronger than anything’; эхе, аз ин тухфаи нагз намешавад <^^1
jjj_j La -^т (jul j Г oh, there could be no better gift than this’.
In attributive position, the comparative is generally accompanied
by a reference to the standard: бехтар аз он ёфт намешавад j ~ ц;
jj—jl jl'you won’t find a better one’ (lit. ‘better than
that will not be found’).
Az may be expanded (esp. in colloq. speech) to аз - дида - jl
‘as compared with’ (lit. ‘seen from’, i.e., with the standard in
view): ин дарахт аз он дарахт дида баланд(тар) аст j^l
cliS. jj jl jl ‘this tree is bigger, compared to that
tree’. The standard may also be introduced by a prepositional phrase,
нисбат ба <t_> .x, j ... '> ‘in relation to’, or назар ба <_> j ‘looking
at’, particularly if the standard is preposed or otherwise emphasized:
нисбат ба ман, дугона-хо, шумо озод-тар-ед <_> ................'
jT L^-i <La<lsLS jj ‘compared with me, friends, you are freer’;
аммо шумо, дугона-хо, назар ба ман озодтаред .1__________а л, |_
ajjSjl jT jj_o <t_> j-k-L . La <uSlS jj ‘but you, friends, are freer than Г.
These last adpositions are used especially when the object of
comparison is a phrase or a clause (which is nominalized as an Infinitive
morphology: nominals
141
phrase): ман аз ТВ тамошо кардан дида бештар китоб хондан-ро
дуст медорам <_-.1	j ~ Л. _i j ь-х-м I .«L-a." . j
cu-cujj I j jjJil‘I like reading a book more than watching
TV’; барон ман дарс-до-и хусусй доштан нисбат ба/ назар ба
кор дардан дар донишгох бештар маъкул аст 3-0 ^1
й I ui 11J jJ (jjj-ii j I—$ 4—j j li i\ 4—> । “ i i m..a (jJi—Ju IJ jj-iuaj—i-a—
I a j- л, . ‘I prefer giving private lessons to working in the
university’ (‘for me... is more pleasing’; see also 4.41).
The criterion of the comparison is generally introduced by the
preposition 6a <_> ‘by (reason of), in (terms of)’: ман аз шумо ба
сол канлонтар-ам	JLuu4_> 1 п 4, jl j_o ‘I am older than you’
(‘greater in year(s)/ by year’), the field of activity by дар jj: вай
пахлавой дар гуштингирй аз шумо хубтар аст jj
-ии-uу; u-jjA L.a jI Jj~ ы>.‘that athlete is better at wrestling
than you’. Degrees of comparison may be inserted before the adjective:
аз ман ду сол хурд(тар) аст	jj jl ‘she is
two years younger than I’.
Cumulative comparative. A progressive or cumulative change in de-
gree, as in ‘bigger and bigger’, may be expressed with the aid of the
adverbтбрафт ej-ijh ‘gradually, by degrees, progressively’: калб-ам
торафт бештар шавк, меангихт	j " Л.	cu-i jL р d а
Х‘.1 ‘my emotions were stirred more and more/1 became more
and more excited’ (adverbial comparative); об торафт поктар мешуд
л, . а у; ^L> ej_s jL <__! ‘the water became cleaner and cleaner’.
On a larger time scale, adverbials such as руз ба руз Jjj_> jjj
or руз то руз j jj L j jj ‘day by day, from day to day’ may be used
with similar comparative VPs. They can also be found reinforcing a
prepositional construction on the infinitive of a VP expressing change:
ва ин дарада низ руз ба руз дар зиёда шудан аст	j
.-^1 jAui tjLj jj jjj_> j5-xS ‘and this amount too is increasing
daily’; мактаб-у мадраса-ю давомеъ-и мо туркистониён... руз
ба руз-и дигар дар таданни-ю руй ба фасод-у харобй нидодан
аст	5зз	з j «
 -^,1	: <.!jA j jLuJ 4 j ^$3j j	^e schools, colleges,
and mosques of us Turkestanis are in decline and heading closer toward
ruin and collapse from one day to the next’.
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The idiom хар чи -тар ys- (lit. ‘all what [is] -er’, i.e.,
the -est possible) may constitute subject, object, or prepositional NPs:
x.ap чи бузург-тар бехтар j-л о . j T <. ‘the bigger, the
better’; кар чи арзонтар-аш-ро бихар j а . |Joj, yijljjl «Ua.
‘buy the cheapest one possible/ you can’; мактуб-ро бо диккат-и
x,ap чи тамом-тар мутолиа намоед <-=. oJej U I j  .j -
a-x-jLo-S «L_*JLk_o ^scrutinize the letter with all possible care’
(‘with the most complete care’).
A comparative without reference to a standard may have an intensive
or attenuating effect: у ба пиёла камтар чой рехт <□!_>_> 4_л jl
jj ‘he poured a little [lit. ‘less’] tea into the cup’; зудтар
биё! !Ш yijj j ‘come quick/ hurry up!’ (lit. ‘come sooner’).
2.43 The Superlative
The superlative degree of comparison is formed with the suffix -тарин
бузург-тарин	‘the biggest, greatest’, тоза-тарин
3-jj^ a jL ‘the freshest, newest’.
Attributive. As an attribute the superlative may precede the noun (as
in SP): баландтарин кух-и дунё 1 j'u a'.I  ‘the highest
mountain of [i.e., ‘in’] the world’, or it may follow it like a regular
adjective, in izofat construction: кух-и баландтарин-и дунё aj__£
A common construction is to link the substantivized superlative
with a partitive izofat phrase, or a pronominal enclitic, denoting the
class of things being compared: баландтарин-и {кух-хо-и дунё}
a	‘the biggest (one) of the world’s mountains’,
equivalent in meaning to the previous sentence. Care must be taken
(particularly in Perso-Arabic script) to note the presence or absence of
izofat after the superlative, since plural objects may also be judged
superlative: баландтарин кух-хо-и {дунё} ^Laaj______£ j.j '.I 
{LjSj] ‘the highest mountains in the world’ does not mean the same as
the sentence before it.
Examples of complete sentences: шахр-и калонтарин-и Тодик-
истан Душанбе аст cu-xJ 4 j *jj jl '	‘the
largest city of Tajikistan is Dushanbe; Душанбе калонтарин-и
morphology: nominals
143
шахр-хо-и Тодикистон аст	—$—Л	Ji1—*’—
jl ". ...< . -s.1". ‘D. is the largest of the cities of T.’; калонтарин-
аш Душанбе аст	jj ^u_i_	‘the largest of them is
D.’ The claim may be restricted to ‘one of the — est’, and the superlatives
may be multiplied: колхоз-и ба ном-и Ленин яке аз бехтарин ва
давлатманд-тарин колхоз-хо-и район буд	jUJLS
jj_j jLj <_gl jl 11 < л ru З!jj j j ~4 j* ‘the Lenin Kol-
khoz was one of the best and wealthiest collective farms in the raion’;
яке аз давонтарин-и онхо хамин Файзибой буд jl
.a . a j . а ь L4II j-i ys j I	‘one of the youngest of them
was this same Faiziboy’.
A common solecism in speech and utilitarian prose is the omission
of a plural marker in the partitive phrase: ин дар замон-и хозира
яке аз пахншуда-тарин дараён ба шумор меравад jLa j jj
л* a jI м» *	л-ъ»*.д . jI t izaL^. this is to be seen
as one of the most widespread occurrence [sic] at the present time’ (for
the form hozira, see 2.40).
Predicative. As a predicate, the superlative degree is expressed as a
universal comparative, using the phrase аз хама jl ‘than all’: ин
кух аз хама баланд(-тар) аст	jl ьу<. ^1 ‘this
mountain is the highest’ (lit. ‘higher than all’); рост, оймулло-и ту
аз хама як cap-у гардан баланд буд <—а-л jl	j
jj_j у, I . jjj-S j j ...< . ‘true, your teacher was head and shoulders
above them all’ (lit. ‘...one head and neck tall[er]’).
The comparative phrase may be joined in izofat to the subject to
form an attributive superlative NP: {кух-и аз хама баландтар}
хаминдост ...Kj . а а г.1 < п д jl ьjS] ‘the highest mountain
(of all) is right here’ (equivalent to balandtarin kUhl kiih-i balandtarin).
The nature of the totality compared may be specified, either after hama
or its synonym, тамом-и n~i (2 37): Парвиз аз хама-и талаба-хо
бо-интизом(тар) аст cla-uJ	L 1_д>«1 .Ik jl jjjj_>
‘Parviz is the best behaved of all the students’; аз тамом-и касб-у
хунар-хо авлотар хамин аст jl La>j_kj> j <_ш—£ j»l o_Ljl
I j a a.‘this is the most excellent of all the arts and crafts/ the
supreme art’.
The ordinal numeral ‘first’ (2.52) is a kind of superlative: якумин
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одаме, ки ба коинот баромад... ТО. А. Гагарин мебошад X 
4'1 x-x-n -I 	...j—afj-j iXiLjjLS \cL>LkjLX 4_i	‘the
first man to go up into space... was Yurii Gagarin’ (lit., ‘the first
person who went... is’; note the Present tense in the main clause,
focusing on the continuing validity of the achievement; for the Relative
clause, see 4.42); аз хама аввал Jjl jl ‘first of all’ (see further,
2.52).
The superlative бештарин j "< 4, j < ‘most’ qualifies only mass
nouns or plurals: бештарин об <_J jjj ~ a. , , ‘the most water’,
бештарин студент-хо j Ll., 3 Л,  ‘most students’. Note
the adverbial phrases бештарин вадт .-.a j j .j ". Л, > . and аксар
вадт clj-sj j-L-SI ‘most of the time’ (lit. ‘the most time’; aksar is the
Ar. synonym of bestarm ‘most’).
Not every occurrence of az near a comparative may be directly
comparing the following NP: аз хар вакт зиёдтар j_a jl
_>3jL j ‘more than (at) any time’ (bar vaqt is an adverbial); ин кор-аш
хам бештар {аз одат бирун} буд cjjLx. jl]	jLS jjJ
jj-?	‘this action of his was even more extraordinary’ (az odat
birun, lit. ‘out of custom’, is a complex adjective).
2.44 Similes, Intensives, Attenuatives
Similes, i.e., comparative phrases in which one item is judged to be of
the same, or similar, quality or degree as another, may be expressed
through adpositions: веечун	(2.19), мисл-и JJL and монанд-и
j-Uil о (2.21), and барин	(2.23), all meaning ‘like, as, similar
to’. These usually compare substantives: одам-е монанд-и вай jj-ojI
вай барин одам-е	‘a man hke him/ such
as he’; кас-е вай барин бой ^L	‘someone as rich as
he’.
An adjective or adverb may be intensified with the adverbs чунон
jhk ‘so’ or он кадар j ‘so (much)’ and its effect illustrated in a
result clause (cf. 4.40): духтар-аш чунон сохиб-чдмол буд, ки он
давон ба вай ошик шуд jl «X J La	t A.j
X J-Llx jl j-a. ‘his daughter was so beautiful that the youth fell
in love with her’, хаво он кадар нагз буд, ки у намехост ба хона
morphology: nominals
145
баргардад jjj_i <Cd \	...I3I jjls a '.T Ij_a
‘the weather was so fine that he did not want to go home’; у чунон
тез пахта мечинад, ки дама дайрой мемонанд j__________G jl '-* jl
JI>j-s. <(-а-л <l£ .<l~i k_i ‘he picks cotton so quickly
that everyone is amazed’.
In order to compare qualities or degrees directly, one uses the
preposition 6a <t_j plus the quality noun, which is generally derived
from the adjective by suffixing (stressed) -й (5.2), with the standard
of comparison in izofat'. як духтар-е ба зебои-и фириштагон ба
хона даромад j-oTjj	j_s	~ А л  <  ‘a girl
as lovely as an angel came into the room’ (lit. ‘with the beauty of
angels’; for the plural, cf. 2.6); гург ба бузурги-и шер нест S
jj_> <и ‘a wolf is not as big as/ not the size of a lion’;
досилот-и имсол ба дамин дуби-и порсол буд Jl ... J
JL_uujL> (j-x-л $ ।‘this year’s harvest/ the harvest this year
was just as good as last year’s’.
A variation on this idiom serves to express an unfavorable comparison
with a quality or degree that was expected: досилот-и имсол ба ин
хубй намешавад jj Л.п'	Jl «I c^iL-aL^this year’s
harvest won’t be so good/ too good’ (‘of this goodness’, i.e., as good
as expected or hoped; cf. чандон/ он дадар хуб нест \jh . г
сю, j 'i«_ j-А j ‘it’s not so good’, and adverbials like ба зудй
csAs 2.46).
Similes may also be constructed morphologically, with the adjective-
forming suffixes-вор jlj-,-oco LluT-, -coh jU--‘-like’, and-тоб
‘tending toward, -ish’: ирода-и одан-вор сахт jlj *4 ajljl
euS—cu ‘iron-hard will/ will as hard as iron’ (‘iron-like hard’); даст-
e садаф-осо сафед л-j. a ». I_aJ Jjaa o~i ,.„j ‘a hand (as) white as
mother-of-pearl’ (the first NP is a regular Adjectival izofat, the second
a Split izofatf, дандондо-и марворидсон сафед-и дилодор-аш-ро
нишон дода J141 1 I(jL jIjyLa. j i a <и JI33--0 ^La jIj-Lj
‘showing her gleaming pearl-white teeth’; the preposed complex
adjectives act as adverbs of manner to those following. Self-sufficient
агесиёд-тоб l_>LSoI j ‘blackish’, and фиребгар-тоб <_.U j < , j «
‘wily, devious’ (‘tending toward deceptive’).
The two common diminutive suffixes -ak (-yak after a back vowel)
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and -ca, normally used for nouns (5.2), may also be added to adjectives
to tone down their degree: сурх-ак-<Aj or сурх-ча 4 - л j , „
‘reddish’, зебояк j ‘quite beautiful, not bad looking’.
In the spoken language, some qualitative adjectives (esp. of color)
form an intensive by addition of a stressed pre-echoic syllable or word,
i.e., a duplicate of the adjective’s first syllable plus a labial, voiced or
unvoiced as appropriate: сап-сафед > . ° ............‘snow-white’,
сип-сиёх б! _i . ц-и ‘jet black’, топ-торик	‘dark as
dark (could be)’, заб-зард	‘bright yellow’; with other than
color adjectives, the pre-echoic word generally doubles its final
consonant and adds a syllable: каппа-калон	‘humongous’,
дуппа-дуруст ...jj-A-ij ‘absolutely right, spot on’, оппа-осон
— 4_jT ‘easy as pie/ as winking’ (see also 5.12).
Another way of intensifying the degree of adjectives, or specifying
the kind of activity, is by reduplication: дароз-дароз j I j j JI j j ‘very
long’.KanoH-KanoH jyLSjyL-S ‘huge’; ч.арохат-аш зирид-зирик
дард карда, азоб медод <_Jj_с	jjj jjj JjjJ
jl ‘his wound throbbed painfully’ (‘...hurting ziriq-ziriq, tormented
[him]’; see further, 5.12). A variation of this has an additional syllable
-o- between the parts: гармогарм	L-aj—S ‘hot as blazes’ (garm
‘hot, warm’), дуродур jjjI jjj ‘very far (away)’ (dur ‘far, distant’).
In simple reduplication, primary stress generally remains word-final,
with a secondary accent on the initial syllable: кап-кабуд jj 	,<
‘sky-blue’; in the longer form, the last syllable of each word tends to
be accented equally, or the first of these may have the primary stress
(garm-o-garm). Hyphens in the Cyrillic spelling are original.
Apart from the usual adverbs бисер j andxene I ‘very’
(see 2.46), a variety of stronger intensifiers may be preposed to raise
the degree of a quality adjective: басо бад I </really bad’, багоят
донишманд in'.lj cLujl_»_i ‘extremely learned’ (from an Arabic
phrase, ‘to the ultimum’),нихоят душвор jl‘extremely
difficult’ (Ar. ‘end point’), бе-нихоят зих j j clujI_‘terribly
annoyed’ (Pers.-Ar. ‘without end’), бе-хад золим j____a_i_i \,>	.
fJLU ‘extraordinarily tyrannical’ (Pers.-Ar. ‘without limit’), аз хад
зиёд нодон ijljb jLj ал. jl ‘egregiously ignorant’ (Pers.-Ar. ‘more
than the limit’); аз хад зиёд танг , £ ~ jUj .л -ч. Jl‘too tight’ (see
morphology: nominals
147
also 2.46).
2.45 Quantifiers: ‘Much ’ and 'Little ’
Thee are a number of adjectives, with pronominal and adverbial sidelines,
which participate in both izofat NPs (2.11) and numerical-type NPs
(2.51). These wild cards may best be treated together as quantifiers.
Much, many. The main noun-adjectives of plenty are бисер (earlier
бисьёр) jl j ... j, зиёд jLj and хеле ‘much, many, a lot, too
much’ (as adverbs: see 2.47). Bisyor may either precede or follow the
head noun, xele usually precedes it and ziyod usually follows it. When
preposed, quantifiers adhere basically to the syntax of numerical NPs,
i.e., they are juxtaposed without izofat to the noun, which is usually in
the singular: бисёр/ хеле масофа pox б1 j <t Ы... * J*.; \^l.... ‘a
great distance/ long way’; вай аз бисёр ч,ихат хак аст
cu-uJ 3-^ c-'fl > jI—i Ц1 j ‘in many respects [sg.] he is right’. However,
when the quantity of the head noun is emphasized or it is felt to be
individuated rather than collective (especially in everyday speech, and
in the case of humans), it often goes into the plural: то хеле дури-хо
< L ‘for miles and miles’; бисёр касон jl ...5 jl _ ... ?
‘many people’, хеле чизхо	‘a lot of things’.
When following the head noun, quantifiers adhere to the syntax of
adjectival modifiers in an izofat NP; the noun may be singular or
plural, according as it is a count noun or mass/ collective noun:
китоб-хо-и бисёр/ зиёд jUj \jl _ Lal_>I ~ 5 ‘many books’,
микдор-и зиёд jLj jljjLo ‘a great amount’.
In simple questions and existential statements, the quantifier alone
may be the predicate, in which case the noun remains singular and
Non-Specific: дар ин ч.о 6of бисёр-мй? - Xa, 6of зиёд хает jj
a jUj £l_> <La> - jI    ;	I a. j-J ‘Are there many
orchards here? —Yes, there are many orchards’ (lit., ‘here, are the
orchards many? —Yes, the orchards are many’).
Little, few. Balancing these are the noun-adverbs of paucity, андак
uSaSl and кам ‘little’ (for mass nouns) and ‘few’ (for count nouns;
i.e. less than expected or hoped, not enough; see also under adverbs of
degree, 2.47). As nouns: андак-и дигар uSj-SI ‘a little more’;
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кам-аш-ро гирифт cj_sj_S I j л S ‘he took the minimum’ (‘the
little of it’). Both words precede the noun in numerical NPs, but prefer
plurals to singulars in the case of count nouns: андак нон ^Lj uSAl
‘little bread’, бисер кам одамон jLojT jl .... , ‘very few persons’.
With the addition of the Specific enclitic -e, andak and kam are
promoted to the more positive ‘a little, a few’ (i.e., sufficient): андак-е
гам ё хурсандй	L ^2 ^Al ‘a little sadness or happiness’,
кам-е об дод ala «_.!	‘he gave [us] a little water’; дадр-е csjjj
‘a [small] quantity/ amount’ is used in the same way (qadr is a variant
of qadar-, cf. 2.35).
Quasi-adverbially, the simple form may be used: ба шумо андак
гаи дорам ^*jlj ^Al l_A.? ‘I have (a little) something to say to
you’. Related adverbials are кам ё беш _.. L. ‘more or less’
(‘less or more’), often meaning ‘not a little’: кам ё беш норозигй
доштанд л'Г| ЛЬ .^>1 jL цАи L ‘they were pretty annoyed’
(‘...had dissatisfaction’); and the double diminutive in, e.g., кам-акак
шинетон jhuij Л. ‘sit down for a wee while’ (see 5.2).
ADVERBS
2.46 Adverbs (1): General; Place and Time
Adverbs modify verb phrases, adjectives, other adverbs, or complete
sentences. In each case they immediately precede the item to be modified:
мо одиста род мерафтем т б1э	L_a ‘we walked
slowly’ (г oh raftan is a compound verb, i.e., an inseparable VP), ин
бисёр нагз аст jjll jl _.; ^1 ‘this is very good’, нисбатан
зуд тамом мешавад jj о. । a	jjj	‘it will finish fairly
soon’, бадбахтона ман намедонам	<Al__~	.'nn-
fortunately, I don’t know’. The usual sequence of adverbials within the
sentence is Time, Manner, Place, e.g.: мо дар руз бо автобус (ба)
мактаб меравем	jl L Jjj j_a L_a ‘we
go to school3 every day, by bus2’. Within this scheme they are ordered
from general to particular: дар дафта се бор шино мекунам
~ а I л. <<' ° ‘I swim three times2 each week/. They may
morphology: nominals
149
be reordered within the sentence to place the important one in emphatic
position, immediately before the verb: писардо-ям он но хеч гох
нарафта-анд	б1£	>(_лj >‘my sons have never
been there’ (time after place).
Of the various adverbs and adverbial phrase types, many also occur
in full or in part as nouns, adjectives, prepositions, or conjunctions:
Noun-adverbs. Many adverbs of place and time are also nouns, or at
least exhibit some of the properties of nouns: in the sentence
замистон онхо руз кор мекарданд ва шаб хона боз мегашт-
анд 2>L «C.LA j	jLS Jjj jl -
ли Л. ‘[in] winter they worked [by] day and returned home [at]
night’, all the nouns are functioning as adverbs without prepositions.
Conversely, even when nouns are primarily adverbs, they often
accept demonstratives and prepositions (дар хамин боло jj
^L>	—<uA‘right up here’), articles, and enclitics (як нафасак
—ki <-£_j ‘(for) one moment’, руз-е jjj ‘one day’) and
plural suffixes (шаб-хо кор мекунад < '< _ * j|_£ I д .. л, ‘he
works nights’).
Adjective-adverbs. Adverbs of manner and degree tend to be adjectives,
which are much less variable (2.46): тез ‘swift; swiftly’; ypo
сабук тела дод jlj «d_G . £  ц, Ijjl ‘he gave him a slight push/
pushed him slightly’; шоирона ‘poetic; poetically’. This
-ona suffix is productive, as an adverb rather than an adjective:
большевикона	‘(in) Bolshevik style’. Meanings or
categories may change with usage: хозир j >-1 -s as an adjective
means ‘ready’ (2.41); as a noun, ‘person present, attendee’ (esp.
in the plural: хозирон-и мадлис <_,.!> n jljuJaLa. ‘the audience,
those present at the gathering’); and as a time adverb, ‘at present,
now’.
Tanvin adverbs. There are several form classes with a large adverbial
membership, but few if any are exclusive to adverbs. One exception
is the high-profile class of Arabic borrowings ending in -ан I- (a
device known as tanvin ‘nunation’; see 1.12). These are adjectives
or nouns in origin, and may be found in almost every semantic
*
category, e.g., time: баъзан 1 ‘sometimes , manner: итти-
фо дан LaLabl ‘by chance’, degree: мутладан LSlL-o (var. мутла-
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до I It k_o, мутладона <lsI ilka) ‘absolutely’, and as general or
sentential adverbs: водеан ill I j ‘really, actually’, датман U.~A
‘definitely, certainly, for sure’: ратман ба хона биё! L_а_1
!Lxj «UiLkj ‘by all means come to [our] home/ you must visit us’.
Often they duplicate adverbs made of prepositional phrases or
collocations: водеан/ дар водеъ j jj \ll_llj, хусусан/ ба
хусус/ алалхусус	< 11 (-Де. \олj un 4 । \llaj	<‘espec-
ially’. They have even been imitated by Persian nouns: зуран
Ijjj ‘by force’, цонан ЬЦ. ‘cordially’.
A smaller number of a related type of Arabic adverbial, beginning
with the definite article al-, has also been copied into Tajik: албатта
<<_b___JI ‘of course, certainly’,: албатта ба у хабар медидам
j - < jl_> <i > 11 ‘I’ll tell him, of course’; алъон jVI,
алдол JL>JI‘(right) now’.
Reduplication. Reduplicated substantives and participles are also
specifically adverbial: год-год al______Sal—S ‘from time to time,
sometimes’, рафта-рафта «ULij-LLij ‘little by little, gradually’;
гуруд-гуруд омаданд aS хЛ *‘they came in droves’.
Ягон-ягон jl < . jl < . is ‘now and then’ or ‘here and there’:
ягон-ягон омада равед a-jjj aj_J jLS-j jLS-j ‘come visit us
now and then/ sometimes’, дар шохача-до ягон-ягон гул-до
кушода шуда-анд aj_i ajLAS jl^j	jj
all ‘here and there on the twigs [a few) blossoms have opened’.
(This use should not be confused with repetition in parallel clauses,
as goh... goh... ‘at one time... at another’; see 4.12.)
From verbal stems come forms such as давон-давон аз хона
берун баромад а_оТj_>	j'	‘he rushed out
of the room’ (‘came out running/ at a run’; see 3.39), вай
зардолу-ро гиригта, хурда-хурда боз медавид IjjJIjjJlsj
JU aJjj-A ftjjj-i. .<i ". aj-2 ‘he grabbed the apricot and
ran back, eating (all the way)’. In a participle, sometimes only
part of the verb (Stem I) is repeated: дав-давон руяш-ро пок
карда ajIJ(_Ajjj jljjjj ‘hurriedly mopping his face’.
This class includes some onomatopoeic and sound-symbolic
words that have no other lexical status: дар дигар дег зирбак-и
палав билид- билид чушида меистод	jj
morphology: nominals
151
jl "	_i ,7,j_a. jj-L> j±_i j_L ‘in another pot the pilaf stew
was boiling and bubbling’; дар шифт-и айвой чарог-и хира
милт-милт карда месухт -.7.1 *	jlj-»1 <-<5 jj
cixAj—6 jj_£ cJL> ‘on the ceiling of the porch a dim lamp
was winking’ (also mil-mil kardan ‘to blink, wink, twinkle, sparkle’;
expressives such as these are inseparable from an appropriate verb,
and are generally subsumed in serial verb conjuncts: see 4.19, and
5.12).
Similar is the insertion of echoic words, either before or after
the adverb: сах,л-пах,л савод-ам баромада истодааст Jo ...
6jLLcu_jI ftd-ofj-j ^»jlJ^j ‘reading and writing is coming
(to me) real easy’, ба андак-мундак кушиш .< д \
----------£ ‘with a little bit of effort’, Амонбокй миён-и ба
шикастан наздик расида-и худро молида-мелида аз дой
хеста... 6 л д I La	бл । < и	j Л) д I * a ^_aLi^LoI
...си» j A (_sLa. jl йл _д!_i n ‘Amonboqi, rubbing his near-bursting
midriff, got up and...’ (cf. 5.12).
Place. The main noun-adverbs of place, from most of which are formed
common prepositional phrases (see 2.21) are: леш ‘in front,
ahead’, аки 6	a r and пас ^хх-д ‘behind, back’, бол о УЬ ‘up,
above’ (ба боло ^Ь*Цд also ‘up-country, northward’), поён (поин)
jLL ‘down’, зер J‘beneath’, дарун jjjj‘in(side)’,
берун jjjj-x-i ‘out(side)’. All of these may acquire a preposition
to specify motion or location: аз боло то поён мерехт УЬ jl
.г,'	jLLi II ‘it poured from top to bottom/ all the way
down’, дар пеш тохтанд J7-:: _>j ‘they charged ahead’.
Without prepositions are дамрод Jj—o_a ‘together’, аловдца
-v jl<- (colloquially pronounced /aloida/ or /alayda/) and чудо
I ла. ‘apart, separate(d)’ (respectively expanded as дар алохидагй
j j and дуд огона <о1£1ла. ‘separately, independently’);
наздик  5 jjJL ‘near’ and дур j jj ‘far’ (except for literal turns
of phrase: аз наздик нигод кардан Jjj-S	51 ‘to
examine closely’, аз дур дидан Jxjj jjj Jl ‘to see from afar’).
Adverbial boz (2.46) may combine directly with pas', корд-и
худ-ро... бозпас ба сок,-и музааш дой кард ...Ijjj-A jjLS
jj_£	(Jil * jj—0 (JLuuj <l_i ‘he slid his knife back into
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the top of his boot’.
In other place adverbs a preposition is usual (generally ba for
direction and dar for location), though often omitted in speech:
(ба) ин 4,0 I__(<_>) ‘here/ hither’, (дар) он ч,о I—=^T (jj)
‘there’ (note that in Cyrillic on jo is written as two words, in
Perso-Arabic it is usually written as one); ба рост/ (ба) тараф-и
рост .-^1 j .-s‘to the right’, дар чап/ (дар)
тараф-и чап <_u.a. i_sj_L (jj) jj ‘on the left’; similarly
with шимол JI n. j. ‘north’, etc.
Байн and миён j I _ л (cf. prepositions {mo)bayn-i and
{dar) bayn-i, etc., ‘between, among’) illustrate the fluid boundaries
between prepositions, adverbs and compound or phrasal verbs.
The adverbials дар миён jl । n jj and аз байн/ аз миён jl
j I . a j | have no separate status outside paired verbal
idioms such as дар миён омадан/ гузоштан Л jLj_а jj
‘to appear/ to present’ and аз байн рафтан/ бурдан JI
jjj_j \jJS_sj й-Aj'to disappear/ to eliminate’ (518). They do fur-
nish a time adverbial, дар ин миён jLu ^1 jj ‘meanwhile’.
Time. The basic adverb-nouns of place provide, through metaphor,
adverbs of time: пеш/ пештар j T.» jj	‘before, formerly’,
and (via the prepositional phrase) пас аз он jT jl ‘after
that, then, next’ (cf. баъд x->-0; the simple word has progressed
from an earlier temporal (‘after, then, next’) to a logical force, пас
‘then, so’: ту меой, пас у дам меояд jl	j » у;
< .1 . л f_a> ‘(if) you come, then he will come too’; пас, у набояд
он чо равад? S jjj I =^J»T j-Л—jl ‘s0> he is not t0 8°
there?’.
The commonest time adverbs admit of limited qualification by
prepositions or demonstratives: акнун дозир jJak, доле
У(_а. (colloq. and dial, доли, hole) ‘now’; то акнун L;,
то доло У La. Ci ‘up till now, so far’, аз доло У La. JI ‘from now
[on|’> дам акнун I f-a, дамин доло ‘just now, right now’;
барвадт jjj ‘early’, бевадт cu_sjц-t ‘late’; даррав jjjj,
дардол J La. j j ‘immediately’ (the first syllable is the preposition
dar, but the words are now written as one); дер ‘late; (for a)
long [time]’, дер боз jU j_jj ‘long since, for a long time’ (for
morphology: nominals
153
boz, see 2.46; and cf. kay, allakay, below); дер ё зуд jjj L
‘sooner or later’; зуд jjj ‘soon, quickly, early’. The Arabic
prepositional phrase минбаъд х»_> ‘henceforth, from now on’
has been borrowed whole. (For ‘yesterday, today’, etc., see 2.54.)
Indefinite and universal time adverbs are: годо Lal__2 ‘some-
times’, дануз jj '< a ‘still, yet’: дануз ч,авон аст jlJj-La
 -^1 ‘she is still young’, дануз нарасид л _i mjS jj-La ‘he has
not yet arrived’; дамеша <i A j n a ‘always’, доим ^Ij ‘continual-
ly, always’: доим пул надошт	‘he was always
without/ never had any money’; даргиз ‘ever’ (literary style,
interrogative and negative sentences; cf. the more common деч
(вадт), 2.37): оё даргиз дадидатан бовафо буд? —Не, даргиз
(набуд)	J-Sj_a	LsjL । ~ °  ° j L-Л ‘was
he ever really faithful? No, [he] never |was]’.
Similarly bipolar is digar: дигар чй? S \4_a. ‘what
else, what next?’; with a negated verb: ин дигар тоза нест I
*jLl	‘this is no longer fresh’; дигар намеоям
not coming any more’.
Place and time adverbials may take comparative and superlative suffixes
(2.42-43): андак-е дур-тар	<a little farther’, ин тараф-
тар шинед л . л, jJa ^1 ‘sit more this way/ closer’; барвадт-
тар _^cujjj->‘earlier (in the morning)’, бегоди-тар	‘later
on’, бештарин вадт clLaj j ~i 4. -ц ‘most of the time’; баъд j-jl-j
and сони ‘after(wards), later’ have баъдтар and сонитар
with little change in meaning; пеш-тар (аз) (jl)j » _>_
‘shortly before, earlier (than)’ allows a point of reference instead of a
standard of comparison: пеш-тар аз омадан-ам ~>л nT 3U ~ * jj
‘earlier than my arrival, before I came’.
When place adverbs take the plural suffix ho, it usually expresses
approximation: боло-до будааст	^1	<-_аУ1_> ‘it must be
somewhere up there’, дар наздиди-до I <j	jj ‘somewhere near’.
With time adverbs, it expresses intensity or iteration: ким-кай^
аллакай	‘long ago’; ким-кайдо La^-^^, аллакай-до
La <d I ‘once on a time, ages ago’ (cf. kim-kl, etc., 2.36); бор-до ин
кор-ро кардааст	LajL ‘he has done this often/
many times’.
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Adding the suffix -она to a temporal term (also adjectival;
see 2,39) produces a temporal manner adverb: руз-она asIj j j ‘daily,
by the day’, солиёна «CiLJLcu ‘annually’ (irregular): ба газета мох-
она обуна шудам ^a_i <4«lSLaLo	<ц> ‘I subscrib(ed) to
the journal by the month/ took out a monthly subscription’.
The suffix -й (_g- added to some numerical time phrases can generate
‘habitual’ adverbs: он ч,о-\о якшабй ё душабй монда... ба хавли-и
худ бар мегашт jj-a. <u	 Л,jj L ? л.<_, I »l ?
—2 j_. ‘he would spend one or two nights in those places [or
thereabouts] and return home’; cf. also the indefinite чандруз-а
bj j jxA ‘for a few days’.
2.47 Adverbs (2): Degree and Manner
The principal adverbs that intensify adjectives are бисёр (older spelling,
бисьёр) jI j ..I j and хёле ol j A, ‘very’ (for these words as quantifiers
of nouns, see 2.45). For unpleasant attributes, there are сахт ... ,
lit ‘hard, tough’, and маххам ________о ‘strong, firm’: сахт оташин
гашта буд aj_> <t "> Л. j_i Л.~J	.... ‘he had grown mighty choleric’,
вай махкам касал шудагй	Л.	S X ‘he has fallen
very sick’. These likewise intensify the action when placed at the head
of a VP: бисёр назд-и мо менишаст ва хеле чой менушид
a_u43 Л, ~iU jI л.ц,  ‘he used to visit us
often and drink a lot of tea’, ба бозу-и модар сахт часбид <i_j
а	Ч jjLa jL ‘he clung tightly to his mother’s arm’.
With adjectives in attributive izofat, adverbs go between the izofat
particle and the adjective: мард-и бисёр хуб-е u-jj-э- j1  ; Jj-o ‘a
very good man’. In the case of a Split izofat, adverbs go after the
Specific enclitic: мард-е бисёр хуб о>4 jI j  j ^a j_a. For special
emphasis, the adverb may precede the whole NP: як вакт ман ин-ро
аз гарк шудан-и дар об халос карда будам, ки хеле хикоят-и
ач,иб аст	<_.! jj ja Л Jj—с jl lj
 ...I . ; 7 A ulj <f-S <^»a‘once I saved this person from
drowning, which is a very strange tale.’
The phrase аз хад зиёд aL_jj а_____=>. jl may mean ‘too [much|’,
modifying either a NP or a VP: аз хад зиёд сергап аст/ харф
morphology: nominals
155
мезанад	>-s j-a. \eu-uJ <_i£ j-j-uj jL J j-a. JI ‘he is excessively
talkative/ talks too much’ (see also 2.45).
The main attenuative adverbs, which lessen the intensity or extent
of a quality or action, are кам андак ‘not veiy, not much’
апдкам-е андак-е цадр-е ‘a little, somewhat’
(for the corresponding quantifiers, see 2.45): у кам ran мезанад jl
о	‘he talks little’ is equivalent to у камгап аст jl
о.,, j ‘he is not veiy talkative’ (‘little of speech’, cf. 5.6); кадре
кафо-тар нишастааст <“• Л.jJLa_3 csjj-S ‘he is sitting a bit
farther back/ behind’. These too may qualify a modifier in izofat.
гул-и садбарг-и андак шукуфта <t i5 Л.	‘arose
on the point of blooming’.
Manner. Manner adverbs are often supplied by appropriate adjectives
alone: аник медонам, ки........*l_£ jCJj—j__о Ji r ‘I know for sure/
definitely, that...’; аммо у сахт манъ кард jj_£ j_i_o ,z.4 ... jl Lol
‘but he strictly forbade [it]’; рост ба боло-и мо парида омад
j_oT *a-j-j-i Lo L <l_i ...I j ‘it flew straight over us’; писарча paco
чорсола шуд/ дорад jjlj \a_i <JLjla Lj	‘the boy is
exactly four years old’; зур каланд зад jj jjJ ‘he hoed hard’
(zur is in origin, and still in some uses, a noun ‘force’: 5.1).
A number of uniquely, or primarily, adverbial particles, sometimes
in combination, highlight or intensify a sentence constituent:
боз JL ‘again, still, further’ has several distinct adverbial functions.
In a verb phrase it means ‘again, back’: (ба) хона боз омаданд
j2>j-of jL <lsL ‘they came back/ returned home’. Following
a NP with time reference, it is a temporal adverb or even a
postposition denoting the extent of time or activity from some
point in the past up to the present, or the moment in focus: цанг
cap шудан боз jL Л,	‘since the start of the war’
(2.23; cf. the conjunction az boze ki, 4.27); кай боз шумо-ро
надидам IjI n 4, jL ‘I haven’t seen you for ages’ (lit.,
‘since when’).
Before an adjective, especially a comparative, boz expresses an
increase in a quality or activity: рухсора-и гулгун-и у боз
гулгун-тар шуд	jL jl 6jLL.j ‘her rosy
cheek(s) became still rosier’; it may be reinforced by ham-, ин
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кол ба асаб-и вай боз хам сахттар таъсир кард JI_________a. j_>l
А «jL ...^»  ‘this circumstance affected
his nerves even more’. When adverbial to a NP or VP, rather than
an adjective, boz. (ham) means ‘still, yet, [some] more, further,
another’: то рафтан-и мо боз се руз хает jL L» jA-ij b
... a Jjj ‘there’s still three days/ three days more till our
departure’;илтимос, боз хам чой ризед	jL ,o..l а".II
ajJ-j j ‘please pour some more/ another tea’ (cf. 2.33). Boz may
also combine with pas (2.45).
катй, катй <(_yAP ‘together’: онхо катй кор ме-карданд LpJ
AjjP (j-o jl£ ‘they worked together/ in concert’; биё катй
меравем j j <__S-A U_> ‘let’s go together’ (cf. hamroh, 2.21,
bo ham, 2.33; kati and its variants also provide prepositions,
postpositions and circumpositions: 2.20, 2.24, 2.25).
махз jA—о ‘merely, purely, only’, juxtaposed before the word or
phrase to be emphasized: махз хамин-ро донистан лозим аст
... Ma I j	a a /one has merely to know this,
this is all one needs to know’; махз ба хотир-и шумо шуда ба
ин до омадам I n. .L. ол_A Ln-/. j_L( Ч । оа a ‘it was
purely for your sake that I came here’ (...it was done [that] I
came...’); бадбахт-тарин-и одамон-и руи замин махз у
—Иброхимдон аст jl (jA	j <_$jj jjAal A ? >.
j I л a I j-jI - ‘the unluckiest man on earth is Ibrohimjon,
that’s who’ (‘the unluckiest of the persons on earth is solely...’),
танхо IpG ‘only’, also an adjective (ман худ-ро танхо хис мекун-
ам i '.5 j—о	I (jт I jjj-A j-o ‘I feel alone/ lonely’): танхо
ман омадам	I ц ‘only I came/1 alone came/1 was the
sole one to come’ (contrast ман танхо омадам l д ‘I
came alone’, adverbial to the VP); танхо аз шумо не, аз хама
но-розй буд jj_.	jl! jl 1(_р Л jl I $13 ‘he was
displeased not only with you, but with everyone’ (for the similar
na tanho...balki, see 4.15; for the relative expressions, tanho kas-e
ki..., etc., see 4.44).
фадат la_5—a ‘only’, qualifies NPs or VPs: факат занхо рафтанд
.u’d. a j Lp j L a a ‘only the women went’, у факат нигох ме-
кунад, кор намекунад А	aL$2. k a. a jl ‘he
morphology: nominals
157
only watches, he doesn’t work’.
хам ‘also, even’; as an (unstressed) enclitic (though in both Cyrillic
and Perso-Arabic written separately), ham focuses attention on
the item that precedes it, in relation to the context at large (which
might extend beyond the immediate sentence or utterance): ман
хам меоям	j-o ‘I’m coming too’; ба мо нигох хам
накард jL_^_>‘he didn’t even look at us’; аз барф
хам сафедтар j~ < j «	Jl ‘even whiter than snow’.
The following sentence illustrates a threefold emphasis achieved
by a combination of ham, its homophonous prefix ham- (2.31,
5.6), and the borrowed Arabic adverb айнан l\xc. ‘in essence, the
same’ (cf. ayn-i, 2.22): ман хам айнан дар хамин акидаам
^»l	1_5_с ____о_а> jj I'i । г jj_o ‘I too am of the veiy same
opinion’ (see also 4.11 for ham as a substitute for a conjunction;
4.13 for ham... ham...; 4.32 for ham as a concessive adverbial).
Хатто ~ ‘even’ (for the Perso-Arabic orthography, see 1.14);
emphasizes the constituent following it (often the complete VP):
Рахим хатто ба мо нигох накард jLj_i	j
‘Rahim didn’t even look at us’; ...дар Боку, хатто дар Самарканд
пайдо мешавад	л jj	jj... ‘it
can be found in... Baku, even in Samarkand’.
чандон/ он кадар jalsl \jlj-l^. ‘(not) so, too, all that —’; preceding
an adjective or adverb, serves to express disappointment at the
degree: ин фикр-и шумо ба ман чандон/ он кадар маъкул
нест Jj а * « j.i 1.LT \jlj_ka. j-o-i I	(jjfthis idea
of yours doesn’t seem all that good to me, 1 don’t much like this
idea of yours’; cf. хосилот-и имсол ба ин хубй намешавад
ij а .	Jl. .. >1	‘this year’s harvest won’t be
too good’ (2.44, 2.47).
2.48	Adverbs (3): Compound and Phrasal
The versatile adjectival suffix -й c5- (5.4) generates some adverbs:
фаврй ‘immediate(ly), express, at once’ is primarily an adject-
ive, but doubles for the tanvin adverb фавран I jj—в: пинхон jl \_i
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‘hidden, secret’ gives пиндонй ^1_____p_>‘secretly’; from пушт-нок
‘supine’ comes, e.g., вайро пушт-ноки ба замин хобонд
^1 \~i Л._| lJc5j‘he laid him down on his back’. (For
numer-ical compounds such as [чор]-кас-й	<[jk] ‘in [four]s, as
a [four]some, quartet’, see 2.53.)
Manner. Manner adverbs may also be formed by a periphrasis, the
derived quality noun with a preposition: ба зудй ‘soon,
quickly’ (lit. ‘with quickness’). Such phrases are synonymous with,
or more emphatic than, a simple adjective used adverbially: 6a
хубй медонист .z,...	> ‘well he knew’ (cf. хуб
медонист	<_।j k ‘he well knew’; рост/ ба ростй
\eu_cJj ‘in fact, to be honest’; филм чандон шавд-
овар/ ба ин шавдоварй набуд	\jjT Jj—i jlaka. p 1 _ °
jcjj jT Jjj-i ‘the film wasn’t all that interesting’ (cf. c andon,
2.47); ба якбора-гй мебаромаданд	.<  <lj
‘all of a sudden they burst out’ (for the suffix, see 5.2); synonymous
is (ба)ногод ftLSLkj \aLSL ‘suddenly’, lit. ‘untimely’; optionally
with the preposition ba, but written as one word in Cyrillic. Ba
nazdikt, lit., ‘with proximity’, may mean either ‘recently’ (past)
or ‘soon’ (future), depending on the tense of the verb: ба наздикй
расиданд _i ...j	<l_> ‘they arrived recently’, ба назд-
икй мерасанд	<(_> ‘they will arrive shortly’.
Izofat phrases also contribute: хуллас(-и калом) 1 <
(j-aik and кутод-и ran  sti‘in short, anyhow’ (lit.
‘the short of the speech’, in Arabicate and Persian phrases).
Time. A number of time adverbs are produced by the addition of the
Specific enclitic -e to a noun: нафас-е °-' ‘(for) an instant’,
ладза-е ^1 < k -J‘a moment’, муддат-е »‘a while’; the last
is commonly expanded into a prepositional phrase with izofat
specifying the duration, e.g., дар муддат-и ду сол cxj__________о jj
JLlujj ‘for (a period of) two years’. More emphatic, often as the
prelude to a negated clause, are: дар тул-и 50 сол 0 • J j j
Jl <.4, ‘in the space [lit. ‘length’] of fifty years’, or дар арз-и ду
мод деч кадом кор-е анч,ом нашудааст al_________a jj ______с. jj
 ...I aj u, •< fl -a.'J (_sjL£ f g_j_A‘in the space [lit. ‘breadth’] of
two months not one task was completed’.
morphology: nominals
159
To emphasize shortness of duration, some temporal nouns take
a diminutive suffix and introduce the adverbial phrase withyaA:
як нафасак	j ‘a mere instant’, як дамакак
. < «j ‘(for) a fraction of a second’ (a double diminutive: 5.2).
Conversely, long duration or cumulation may be emphasized by
repetition: сол аз/ ба/ то сол JL**. Is \«l_> \jI JL_^ ‘year after
year, from one year to the next’; сол-х,о-и сол JLu ‘for
years and years’.
Suffixes. Like adjectives, adverbs may expand their meaning through
suffixes, -акй l_s£- and -нокй ^11-: хар-акй ‘on don-
key-back’; дарун-акй/ дарун-нокй/ дарун-дарун хандид
Jjjj jjjj\ Jjjj\	‘he laughed inwardly/
to himself’; поезд торафт ба туннел-и дароз даруннокй
мерафт cj-sj—j—о	^Ijj J-Sj-S oi-ajLs jJ-jU ‘the
train grad- ually disappeared inside a long tunnel’; мо паснокй
хеле масофа-ро тай карда...	ol j А. ^1 L>
...6j‘we went back/ backtracked a considerable distance...’ (cf.
-HOK uSLL-, 5.4).
Periphrasis. The words for ‘manner, sort, kind’ that form interrogatives
(2.35) also appear in manner adverbials. Thus ба тавр-и-
-jjJa_i.‘in a — way’ provides a general matrix for nouns or
adjectives to become adverbs: ба тавр-и хулоса «_jj-Lj
‘in sum(mary), concisely’ ба тавр-и умум fj—»—c jj-L-j ‘in
general’, ба тавр-и хачвй	‘humorously, satirically’.
Other idioms are як навъ босавод шудам jlU
i ‘somehow (or other), I learned to read and write’; якзайл
J_ij < . (lit. ‘one kind’; written in Cyrillic as one word) ‘in one
unchanging state’, e.g.: модар-аш... карахт туда монда, якзайл
ба берун гуш меандохт J-j...(_£ jjLa
<rJAldJl(_s_a jS. Jjj-u-lj ‘his mother... had become paralyzed,
and listened fixedly to [the noises) outside’. From it is derived the
adjective якзайлй I _ '< 5 ‘one-dimensional, monotonous,
uniform’. Як хел J » < ‘of one kind, homogeneous’ is like-
wise an adjective, with a variant якхела <J_j—X5._.; it is also an
indefinite adjective ‘some’ (see 2.36).
Prepositions. With the addition of a demonstrative pronoun, many prepo-
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sitional phrases (2.21-22) become adverbials, e.g.: бар хилоф-и
ин/ он jT \j_jI ujil—a. ‘by contrast, on the other hand’, бо
вучуд-и ин/ он jl \j-J jj—=.j Lj ‘despite this, nevertheless’,
сарф-и/ цатъ-и назар аз ин j^l jl « L ~а\. sJ ~ ‘regard-
less/ irrespective of this’. Others merely need to lose the izofat:
бар акс	‘on the contrary’. Participial phrases may also
be adverbial: ба ин нигох накарда азal^S j_iL> ‘regardless
of this’ (‘not having regarded this’). Such idioms (and most of
those below) tend to function as sentence adverbs.
Other adverbial idioms involve prepositions, though they may not exist
as prepositional phrases in the lexicon. A few examples:
(аз) афт-аш ^Llil ( Jl), аз афт-и кор: jtS cull jl ‘from the look of
it/ of the matter’: аз афт-аш, пирамард нафакдхур аст jl
cj-ujI jjA «Lili	cA-llI ‘the old man looks like/ seems to
be/ is likely a pensioner’; аз афт-и кор у пагох меояд jl
ajLj_a aliL jl jl£ <xj-sII ‘he’s probably/ it looks like he’s coming
tomorrow’.
аз дусар j_uujj jl (lit. ‘from both ends’) ‘in any case, by any stretch;
no way’ (with neg. verb): аз дусар, ману шумо ок,сак,ол барин
бой намешавем	Jl а If I л- j j-д uujj jl
There’s no way you or I will ever be as rich as the
village headman’.
аз гайр-и чашмдошт-и [мо] La c-uaih n.u-% jl ‘unexpectedly/
to [our| surprise’ (lit. ‘from other than what we foresaw’).
аз нав jl JI ‘anew, again, from scratch’: масдид-ро аз нав сохтанд
^1 JI I j л ‘they rebuilt the mosque’.
ба куллй ц I ; and its Arabicate literary predecessor билкулл(и)
\JXJI ‘totally, completely’: ба куллй зикк шудам
j J ‘I’m totally fed up’.
бешубха	‘without doubt, doubtless’: бешубха у аз ухда-и
ин кор мебарояд з-JJjI ал a-^ Jl jl d a .	‘n0
doubt he will prove equal to this responsibility’.
бо эхтиёт LII L ‘carefully, cautiously’; бо навбат L> ‘in
turn, by turns’; саридупо L j3 j___________ ‘squatting’ (‘on two feet’;
one word in Cyrillic).
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161
Parenthetical circumstantial absolutes, familiar in English, are common
in Tajik: 40м ба каф <.	___a. ‘glass in hand’, к,алам-у когаз
дар даст	j ‘pen and paper in hand’. Alternately,
the locative phrase is preposed with a possessive: мард-и чапандоз,
дар дасташ кдмчин, ба майдон баромад au*i эj . j I j *i_>> jj-»
j_Jj_j j I >  » d  .j  л a‘the buzkashi player, a horsewhip in his
hand, came out into the field’.
NUMERALS
2.49	Cardinal Numbers
Fig. 2.49a Numbers 0-19
0	сифр*	•		10	дах	V	6J
1	як		< < >	и	ёздах	\\	gJjL
2	ДУ	Y		12	дувоздах	\\	ajjlJj
3	се	Г	<_GU	13	сездах*	\Г	6 J J- 1
4	чор*	Г	->Ц-	14	нордах		
5	панч,	0		15	понздах		0 J j-jLj
6	шаш*	F		16	шонздах	V	6j j-jLi
7	Хафт	V		17	хабдах*	W	& Л 1 &
8	Хашт	А		18	хаждах*	)А	b j Va
9	нух	5	>	19	нуздах		
*Variants: 0нол(ь); 4чахор jL^a. (literary, archaic); 6 шиш
(dialect); 13 сенздах .„(colloquial, dialect); 17 хафдах eJ_La
(former or competing standard); 18 a (earlier written form; pro-
nounced /hafcdah/).
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Fig	. 2.49b	Numbers 20 - 1000		
20	бист	V-	.	70 хафтод	
30	ей	Г-	80 хаштод	Л • d~ Л, а
40	ДИЛ*	ъ >-Ц-	90 навад	
50	пандох	0- 6|^д1	100 сад*	V- aL=>
60	шаст		1000 хазор*	Jj-Л
*Variants: 40 чихил (literary, archaic); 100 яксад \ » -< 
a^=; 1000 як хазор jljjb (usually in combinations).
Combinations: 31 сию як < S _i j ctc- (variant, сиву як, etc.);
101 саду як j a_~=>; 200... 900 дусад...нухсад a .	. j 3a;
Хазору як j jlj-a; 119,105 (як)саду нуздах хазору саду панд
J J jlj-* J ‘b-a (^)-
Numbers are construed in order from highest to lowest, with the
connective enclitic -у/-ю j- ‘and’ after each range, e.g., 1,203,456,789:
як миллиард-у дусад-у се миллион-у чорсад-у пандох-у шаш
Хазору хафтсад-у хаштод-у нух з jl _J «	j а-^эja j a_>_J_o <_SL
<L J aLLL-A J 3 a J jlj-Л J 61 > A-1J J la-
in Perso-Arabic texts of the earlier 20th century, bist ‘twenty’ is
sometimes written c, ... ;; in combinations of tens and units, j is
sometimes omitted: <i_uu j - .. (as an enclitic, it is reduced
to the short vowel /и/:	j, the diacritic for which is not usually
written; see 1.14,4.11).
Other numbers are: ним p. аД ‘one half’; яку ним >_ j ‘one
and a half’, сею ним миллион (jj J n) jl_JL (^Д j < ‘one and a
half million’; як миллион JI _ I _» -^LJone million’, ду миллион ja
51 jI j о ‘two million(s)’, etc.; як миллиард a^.j I д l£_j ‘one billion’,
etc.; in older texts can be found the Indo-Persian terms як лак l^_.
‘one lak’ (100,000), панд лак ^Д_. or як курур jjj-S
‘one crore’ (500,000), etc.
The round terms for ‘ten’, ‘hundred’, ‘thousand’, and up may be
treated as nouns and pluralized: даххо газета доп мешаванд La оа
адj л, 	. L. «LiJ-S ‘dozens of journals are published’ (lit. ‘tens’),
сад-хо нафар омаданд аДа_Л _>ДД Laa^=> ‘hundreds of people came’.
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163
Eastern arabic numerals are written from left to right, just like the
Western variety. In early Soviet Tajik texts, in the Perso-Arabic as
well as the Latin alphabets, Western arabic numerals were usual.
2.50	Number Phrases (1)
The basic Numerical NP does not use the izofat structure. Numbers
precede the numerand, which is normally in the singular: чор дарвеш
jLj j jj jla. ‘four dervishes’. This rule applies also to the corresponding
interrogative and quantifying adjectives: чанд китоб доред? -Чандин
китоб . .1 " < j .л$ j_i jlj	'i-v ‘how many books do you
have? —Several books’ (see further 2.34, 2.36).
Classifiers. One of a small group of classifying nouns (also called
numeratives or counters) may intervene between the number (or
interrogative, etc.) and the numerand. In modern Tajik, the most usual
are the (unstressed) enclitics -та/ -то Ls (the more vernacular ta is not
usually written in Perso-Arabic): як-та зан j j (-3 ‘one [item]
woman’, сад-то курта <3L ‘a hundred shirts’, чанд-та анор?
S jlsl Ls ~ ‘how many pomegranates?’. For persons, нафар j_____LS
‘individual’, and кас ‘person’ may be used: сию хашт нафар
сайёх ^Г_> j-LS ,г. Л, д> 3	‘38 tourists’.
Animate numerands after a classifier may take a plural suffix: дар
мактаб-и мо 122 нафар пионер-он ва пионерка-гон хдстанд
ft jl<<j 	-  j j'j—j 1 ' '4 U  "< a jj ‘in our school
there are 122 pioneers, both boys and girls’ (cf. 2.2).
These classifiers formerly constituted an extensive series, some of
which may still be heard in the market place and read in older texts:
cap j_uu‘head’, for animals: ду cap гов jlX jj ‘two cows’.
бех ‘root’, for trees: чор бех себ ш jLa. ‘four apple
trees’ (as distinct from чорта/ чор дона себ ц. <Cilj \Ls jLa.
‘four apples’).
дона <c>Ij ‘grain’, and адад ‘number’, for smallish objects: дал
дона бод(и)ринг дихед а_________-j-Ла u5_SjjU «-Ja *а ‘give [me] ten
cucumbers’; се адад к,алам jjx ‘three pens’.
дилд лЦ. ‘volume’, for books; банд j_k_> ‘bundle’ and its diminutive
бандча ‘bunch’, for sticks, greens, etc.
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The last two shade into the category of conventional containers, weights,
and measures, which employ the same grammar: ду пиёла чой jj
<dl_xj ‘two cups of tea’, чору ним кило картошка >_»' j jla.
jL ‘four and a half kg. of potatoes’. Note that partitive
expressions, a quite different sort of numerical phrase, use a following
izofat without a classifier: як-и онх,о I_-£_> ‘one of them’, ду-и
шумо ‘two of you’ (not ‘the two of you’ or ‘you two’, which is шумо
ду нафар jiS jj La .1).
A classifier is obligatory only if the number (or the quantifier) is
mentioned without the numerand, as in English ‘I’ll take three’. A
number is an abstraction: one can no more say Til take three’ than
one can say ‘I’ll take n’. In Tajik, the classifier becomes a kind of
pronoun for the deleted referent: шумо чанд (нафар) будед? -Чандин
кас; шаш нафар oh.,.u j_> с.-,- <? j_,jj_, (I п л,
‘how many were you? —Several people; six’ (note that a classifier
remains optional after interrogative cand). In fact, any numerand which
can be interpreted as a category for the word that follows it puts that
word in the singular, without izofat'. хафт навъ паранда £.-.ь
блД‘seven species of bird’, се катра хун	оj U а а ... ‘three
drops of blood’.
A classifier that unifies a number of different but related objects
is: (як) даста <1 ~ .„a ‘a set, suit, suite, group, etc.’: як даста
либос	‘a suit (of clothes), outfit’;як даста созанда
6jJ.jl 4_Д—‘a band (of musicians)’. More restricted is (як)
чуфт .,z.ua -j. (Д^) ‘(a) pair, couple’: ду чуфт пойафзол ci. jj
‘two pairs of shoes’, як чуфт барзагов jLS a
‘a yoke of oxen’; juft also means ‘even’, of numbers (рак,ам-и чуфт
xiа > jxlj ‘even number’, ракам-и ток JU= ‘odd number’). One
item of a conventional pair (e.g., of shoes, saddlebags, gloves) is линг
 < I (‘leg’): линг-аш-ро биёред jl _i > I j \ I ‘bring the other
one’ (sock, earring, etc.); a figurative idiom is линг ба линг меоянд
। л  < ' I j I ‘they go well together, suit each other, make a
couple’.
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165
2.51	Number Phrases (2)
Numerical NPs may include demonstratives and other determiners:
хамин панч кас	д> ‘these five people’; ‘both’ is xap
ду jj j-л, likewise xap се нафар j_a<t_^ j_j> ‘all three (persons)’,
etc. Numbers or classifiers that introduce a partitive may be joined to a
pronominal enclitic: xap ду-яш нагз аст cu-lJ j-i-S >а ‘both
of them are nice’, якта-аш-ро парто Lij. I Joi_jLi	‘throw one
of them [away]’.
The numerand may be an izofat or other kind of NP: дах чуфт
муза-и чармин-и сиёх j-a л«, jj_a сА aa‘ten pairs of
black leather boots’. These and other kinds of number phrases may be
the objects of adpositions: бо ду кас шинос шудем jj (_>
Л, (j^Li-i'we got acquainted with two people’; овоз-и сад гурба
барин гушхарош буд jj_i jA	jljt ‘it
was as cacophonous as the yowling of a hundred cats’. As a direct
object, the unqualified numerical NP is usually treated as Indefinite
(cf. the archetype of the Indefinite NP, yak pisar, which is a number
phrase; 2.7); thus it does not warrant the enclitic -ro: се каштй дидам
o" .*< ‘I saw three ships’. However, if the number phrase as
object is intended as Definite (I saw the three ships), or qualified by a
demonstrative or possessive pronoun or otherwise made definite (see
2.17), it will take -ro: хамон дах нафар-ро боздошт карданд
ajjл.1 <jl . I j A	(jLa-л ‘they arrested those ten persons’.
Exceptionally, the numerand may take a plural suffix when it denotes
a conventionally or contextually defined group: аз хамин шаш-
нафар-он факат ба ду нафар... даст намерасонем	jl
.-,1 ...j„ •.	...j-ls jj_i Us о jlj а.-.‘of these six (men) we
will leave only two unharmed’. To refer to a number of conventionally
related entities, a multiplicative adjective formed with the suffix -гона
<llL5-(5.4) is occasionally used: мавсим-и чоргона <llL£ jA
‘the four seasons’ (lit., ‘the fourfold season’).
A prominent member of this class of -gona adjectives is that derived
котик А: ягона ALSL ‘(the) one, single, unique, only’ (not to be
confused with ягон jtA ‘some (or other)’; see 2.36): писар-и ягона
j ...  ‘(an) only son’, ирода-и ягона-и халк	ajl jl
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‘the single will/ single-minded determination of the people’; like tanho
‘only’ (2.47), it may precede the NP: ягона орзу-и ман
d-°	‘тУ оп&/ only/ single desire’, ягоня маслихате, ки
ба ту медихам.......n <с>1£-> ‘the sole/ only
counsel that I give you...’.
Numbers may be used abstractly, as in counting or arithmetical
operations (see 2.55). In these cases they need no adjuncts of any kind:
панч, рак,ам-и ток, аст jLL j ‘five is an odd number’;
Хашт нависед л j.< .г,. д> ‘write “eight”’. If they are specified as
‘the number/ figure —’, of course, the normal rules of izofat NPs
apply: рак,ам-и хашт-ро нависед л _  I » - «j ‘write the
number “eight”’.
Telephone numbers are construed in pairs; if the number has seven
digits, the first three are construed together: 345-24-01: sesad-u cil-u
panj, bist-u cor nol-yak.
2.52 Ordinal Numbers
Ordinal adjectives are formed with the suffix -ум (-юм - after
vowels; often -ум/ -йум in Cyrillic up until the 1980s: see 1.12):
якум ‘first’, дуюм (earlier, дуйум; variants, дуйум, дуввум)
‘second’, сеюм (earlier, сейум; variants, сейум, севвум)
j-lx, ‘third’, яксад-у сию нухум j j ‘139th’,
etc. (сигом ‘thirtieth’ was earlier сийум in Cyrillic, and is
usually written as two words in Perso-Arabic to distinguish it from
P _... ‘third’).
Like regular adjectives, they follow the noun so qualified in izofat
construction: синф-и сеюм ш ‘third grade’. The resulting
NP is normally Definite, and may be the direct object or object of an
adposition: китоб-и сеюм-po дихед j j ш >_>! TS ‘give [me]
the third book’; it may be made Specific by preposing the quasi-article
yak. чй тавр аст як пандум-ро илова кунем  < _>I jj L
р _ ьjiLc । j р ? ~ij ‘how about adding a fifth (one)?’ (not ‘one-fifth’;
see Fractions, 2.53). Ordinals may be substantivized and constitute the
head noun in an izofat phrase, e.g., in order to express a calendar date:
якум-и май -<_ ‘the first of May’ (for riiz-i yakum-i may), and
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167
may be joined to a pronominal enclitic in a partitive phrase: чорум-
Л
аш-ро надидам	‘I didn’t see the fourth one (of
them)’; дугам-ашон расид л । ...j	‘the second one has
arrived’ (singular enclitic for things, plural for people; 2.30 (2)).
Initial and cumulative ordinals. There is another series of ordinal adject-
ives, corresponding formally and semantically to the superlative,
formed by the further addition of -ин	to the ordinal: якум-ин/
аввал-ин ф-J jl \j -«5 j дуюм-ин	etc. (with the same
variants as noted for the first series). This form typically denotes a
prominent instance in a series, such as the first occasion, or the
latest as a cumulation, e.g., an anniversary: cf. бор-и чорум jL
‘the fourth time’, but аввалин бор jL_> ф-jJjl ‘the first
time’ (2.51),бисту панцумин солгардонй Jj д > j с...» и
jXJL-u ‘25th anniversary/ birthday’.
The qualifier may either precede the head noun (without izofat)
or follow it (with izofatf. ин-ро аз аввалин устод-и худам
дорам з-S. J 3 mJ jl I T have this from my
first teacher’; вазифа-и аввалин-и мо инаст, ки... 5—a । kj
...<5 --.^1 j_>l L-o з-J jl'our first duty is to...’. In second positi-
on (frequently a semantically marked ordinal such as ‘first’; see
next), it may not differ in connotation from the unmarked form
with -ум (*-: у савол-и аввалин-аш-ро бо оханг-и чиддй...
такрор кардааст	\ ДуТ L I jau Jlj-— jl
 ..J ‘he repeated his first question in a serious tone’.
The form in -ин Jj- does not admit of adverbial use.
‘First’. In addition to якум £._t the Arabic loanword аввал Jjl is
used (though less than in SP): боб-и аввал-и роман Jjl
j_olj‘the first chapter of the novel’. It is also a noun meaning
‘beginning’: аз аввал-и сол JL^ Jjl jl ‘from the beginning of
the year’ (not necessarily ‘the first (day)’). In an adverbial phrase,
it may employ the plural suffix to express approximation: аз
аввал-хо-и аср-и XX V- lsU-G* j* ‘from the еаг,У (Part
of the) 20th century’, or the more literaty Arabic plural: дар авоил
J_Jjl jj ‘in the beginning’. Rhetorical ‘first of all, to begin’ is
даставвал Jjl (a mute izofat). An infrequent literary term
for ‘first’ is нахуст/ нахустин L	.
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‘Last’. The last in a series is охир/ охирин	which in
most uses follows the pattern of avval'. охир-и кор jl$ jSj ‘the
end of the job’; дар руз-хо-и охир Lajjj ‘in/ during
the last [few] days’; охирин бор/ бор-и охирин \j1_j
jL ‘the last time’, сухан-и охирин	... ‘last
words’. (For idiomatic adverbial use of oxir, see 4.10.)
Adverbs. The first three numbers have regular ordinal adverbials. The
ordinal adjectives alone may be used: аввал Jjl ‘first(ly)’ (but
not yakum), дуюм jj ‘second(ly)’: аввал —хеш, дуввум
—дарвеш	_> A.— Jjl ‘first, one’s own, second,
the poor’ (prov.; i.e., ‘charity begins at home’); сеюм - 
‘third(ly)’. The adverbial forms аввалан У jl ‘firstly, first of all’
and сониян Usll ‘secondly’ are also used.
Interrogative ordinals. The corresponding interrogative adjectives to
these ordinals are чандум (earlier variant, чандум)/ чандумин
(чандумин)	‘which (in order)?’: к,абат-и чанд-
ум? *? o. i 2 ‘which floor?’ (of a building); ту дар синф-и
чандум мехони?	jj ‘which grade
(at school) are you in?’.
Pronouns. An ordinal pronoun, ‘the first (one), second (one), etc.’ adds
the suffix -Й L$- (5.2) to the basic ordinal: ман аввалй будам,
шумо охирй I a ar,	jl ‘I was (the) first, you
were (the) last’ (in line, series, ranked order, etc.). With siblings,
it may be added to the adjectives of relative age: хурд-й jj-A
‘the younger/ youngest (one)’, калонй	‘the older/ oldest
(one)’.
2.53 Numerical Expressions
The following methods of numerical organization are expressed morpho-
logically and/ or syntactically in Tajik.
Distributive adverbials may be formed in several ways.
(1)	By simple reduplication of the number, with or without the enclitic
classifier-та/ -то 1д- : чор чордароед jj _>Ц. jLa.‘come
in four at a time, in fours’; дуга дута парвоз мекарданд 1дjj
лДзj<  - jl Is jj ‘they flew off two by two, in pairs’.
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169
(2)	By suffixing (stressed) -гй to (one instance of) the number-
classifier combination: шаш-та-гй/ шаш-то-гй I " Л. », etc.,
‘by sixes, six at a time’. This device may also be used for quantities
by unit of measure (the unit replaces the classifier): се кило-гй
таксим кунед f а~>	‘share [it] out 3 kg. at a
time/ in three-kilo lots’.
(3)	A variant of -гй -, especially after nafar or other nouns, is -Й
якто-й ^1 j ‘singly, one at a time’; мо шаш-нафар-й
волей-болбозй мекунем	JLl_J I j j я \ L>
‘we play volleyball six a side/ six-a-side volleyball’.
(4)	With named or pronominal recipients, the possessive izofat may be
used: ана чор-та-и Алидон jl J r ^b jL 4bl ‘here’s (the)
four for Alijon’, дах-и ман-у дах,и ту jb j ‘ten for
you and ten for me’.
(5)	In the explicit context of a purchase, the noun байъ ‘bargain,
deal’ is added to form an adverbial compound, килобайъ
j I < : шумо килобайъ мехаред, ё халта-ш-катй? I л Л,
<(ji.I< ~l< L jb.£_!_> jl .< ‘will you buy it by the kilo
or in [‘with’] the bag?’.
Cooperative adverbials are formed by adding -a to the number-
classifier combination (usually either kas or nafar, for rational
beings): мо ду-кас-а кор мекунем « jL jj La ‘we
work in pairs/ twos’. Similar variable compounds may be expressed
with the suffix -Й l5-: [чор]-кас-й S [_>(-?] ‘in [four]s, as a
[four]some, quarter’.
Added to these and other nouns, suffix -a also generates adjectives
(and a few nouns) denoting multiple components or functions,
duration, etc.: купе-и дукас-а < ... Sjj ‘two-seater sports
саг’,таътил-и се-мох-а 4_ab J _ L * " ‘three-month holiday’;
ду-корд-а e>jjLSjj ‘shears’ (‘two-knife’); ду-раг-а 4_Sjja ‘hy-
brid’ {rag ‘lineage, breed’); чанд-руз-а ь ‘of a few days’;
ду-карат-а/ дукарат-й jJ \*Ь_Л‘double, twofold’. This
formative overlaps in function with the next; cf. комиссия-и
чоргона 4bIS jL>. a  ‘four-person board’.
Multiplicative adjectives are obtained by suffixing -гона 4blS-‘—fold’
to the cardinal number: ду-гона 4bl—S jj ‘double, twin’ (also a
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noun denoting one of a pair of women friends); иттифок,-и сегона
<2>LS (jLisI ‘the Triple Entente’ (see also 2.50, and the suffix
-a above).
Multiple increase may also be expressed syntactically by
postposing баробар j_J j. ‘level, equal, on a par’ to the numeral
(cf. 2.24): кувва-и шуришгарон 5-6 баробар афзуд г>5____л
Jjj—al _>-jI_h	jljj—‘the rebels’ strength has
increased five or six times, the rebels have become five or six
times as powerful’; similar is the idiom як бар чанд зиёд шуд
jUj лДл. j_> ‘it increased several times over’ (‘one upon
several’).
Frequency. The nouns бор jL, дафъа 4_*_aj, карат/ карра \oj-S
маротиба (мартаба) (<_pj_o) 4 j"lj—° all mean ‘time,
occasion’ (the variants are more literary): се бор омад _,Li 4 ...
a-J ‘he came three times’, ин филм-ро чанд маротиба тамошо
кард ед? —Садх,о маротиба	4 ?t!j__□ I jjJj
4_l;Ij—о Laj_uo- S jjj‘how many times have you seen this
film? —Hundreds of times’. Mention of the time frame usually
precedes the number phrase: дар хар (як) сол се бор/ маротиба
4—j-Sl_>—a \jb 4—Jl_ш	j_a> jj “three times a/ per year’.
These terms also express the multiplicative sense: дазор бор
бедтар j j jl_i ‘a thousand times better’ (see also 2.55,
under Arithmetic).
With the addition of the cooperative (etc.) suffix -a (see above),
du bor ‘twice’ changes in meaning: дубора ijLjj, дуюмбора
& jl_ij>_jjj‘again, once again/ more’.
Сафар j__i—(‘journey, trip’) is also used for ‘time’, but not
generally with numbers: ин сафар ман х;ам савор шавам 3-J
jlf-л (>л ‘this time, let me ride too’.
Age. Шумо чанд сол доред? -Бист сол (дорам) JL—и д',I » л
(f jlJ) Jl—j	‘how old are you?—Twenty’; also,
ман дарун-и бист х,астам	, □_> Jjjj j-o ‘I am
twenty’ (lit. ‘inside twenty’): дозир ман ба як кам ей
дараомадам J jj	4_> j >ь1 -> ‘I am one year
shy of thirty’ (cf. Time of Day, 2.54); in Northern dialect, руй-и
чил-у чор-ба шудем ---------i 4_> J J-^-lsjj ‘I ат/ have
MORPHOLOGY: NOMINALS
171
reached forty-four’ (using a circumposition; 2.25). Speaking of a
third party, one may use the adjective form with -а: писар-и
шаш-сола dl,,,.* ‘six-year-old boy’.
Adding to this the Quality noun suffix -gi (5.2) helps to produce
the common adverbial phrase дар -солагй	jj ‘at the
age of; aged — ’: у дар шонздахсолаги-аш аввалин роман-и
худ-ро навиштааст jLoj jl d:< IL* ajjJiLi jj jl
 ^.1 <i “ л,‘at the age of sixteen he wrote his first novel’. This
variable numerical compound noun -solagi (see 5.2) also designates
anniversaries: дах,солаги-и истицлолият e.u_dyla" t..l
‘the tenth anniversary of independence’.
Precision and approximation. The adjective paco I—j ‘full, whole,
complete, enough’ may be used adverbially as ‘exactly, precisely’:
у paco дар соат-и се омад «и* c^L* jj L*j jl ‘he came
at precisely three o’clock’. (As an attributive adjective raso means
‘whole, full’: ду сол-и paco интизор мекард I—j J(—
jj<_, a jl kvd ‘she waited two whole years/ a full two years’.)
Tanvin adverbs тадрибан	‘about, approximately’ and
тахминан I. к•. ‘roughly, at a guess’ likewise precede numeri-
~	a
cal expressions: тахминан дах фарсах g-шj-s 6j I 'ij A', ‘about
ten parasangs’.
For expressions of time, indefinite quantifiers may also be used:
як бист руз пеш jjj о**_____________а_> Xj ‘some twenty days
before; about twenty days ago’; ягон се соат мунтазир будем
jx-jjj-j j к	4_cu jLSL ‘we were waiting (for) some two
hours/ about two hours’. For ‘about one’, yagon is enough: аз
бозор ягон кило анор харида биёр jLI jLSj jljL j1
jL_i ьа-ijA ‘get (‘buy-and-bring’) about one kg. of pomegranates
from the market’ (foryagon ‘some’, see also 2.36).
2.54 Days, Dates, Time
Tajik Persian is heir to a long intellectual tradition, situated at a crossroads
of cultural influences, and is today in a process of cultural transition.
Only a brief sample can be given here of the many ways in which
calendrical and other numerical systems are reflected in the grammar.
172
CHAPTER TWO
Days and Dates. The names of days of the week and months of the
year do not begin with a capital in Cyrillic. The names of days begin
with numbers, except for Friday, and for Saturday, the base term:
шанбе < । ~i A, pronounced /Sambe/ (1.5).2 *The working week begins
on Monday: Душанбе < ?Ajj‘Monday’, сешанбе < Ad ... ‘Tues-
day’, чоршанбе 4 । .ojLa. ‘Wednesday’, панчдганбе 4 .. ' A .
‘Thursday’, чумъа <__»—‘Friday’ (literary variant, одина
шанбе < j \ Л. ‘Saturday’, якшанбе <	 ‘Sunday’.
To ask ‘what day is it?’, an interrogative ordinal is used, either:
имруз чандум аст? Scj-uJ jjj-»1 or имруз чандшанбе аст?
Scj^-uI < j\ Aj jjj_J (cf. дабат-и чандум?	j « (2.50).
‘On Saturday’, etc., is дар (руз-и) шанбе 4 ? \ A ( Jjj) jj.
Terms for adjacent days are: имруз jjj_o Г today’, дина, динаруз,
дируз	<4_Ljj ‘yesterday’, парер, пареруз
before yesterday’; пагод, фардо Ijj______a -<!
‘tomorrow’, паспагох,, пасфардо l.»j ° _	...  ‘the day after
tomorrow’.
As a date of the month, a day is expressed as an ordinal number in
izofat with the name of the month (q.v., below). If the name of the day
is stated, this does not take izofat. (руз-и) сешанбе, чорум-и феврал
Jl jjj j» jla. 4 J1	(jjj) ‘Tuesday the fourth of February’.
Calendars. Two civil calendars are currently in use:
(1) The Iranian solar calendar, counting from the start of the Islamic
Era in 622 се. (дичри-и шамсй u... n A у a) and using the
Arabic names of the Zodiacal signs for the corresponding months
(as usual in Afghanistan); the year begins when the sun enters
Aries on or about 21 March (the holiday of Навруз ‘New
[Year’s] Day’).
(2) The Gregorian calendar of the Common or Christian Era, using the
Russian names of the months. Eras are designated милодй, баъд аз
милод jyl—j—о jl j_»_i	о ‘ce, ad’, or пеш аз милод jl j_>
jyb-o ‘bc(e)’.
2 The terminal e in sanbe and its compounds is a variant of the “short” vowel -a
o-, not the “long” vowel -e
morphology: nominals
173
Fig. 2.54 Months of the Tajik Year_____________________________________
The first six months of the Iranian solar year (1st column) have 31 days, the
next five have 30, and the last one (хут оj ‘Pisces’) has 29, but 30 in
every fourth year (a leap year, сол-и кабиса <t	J I—«). The Russian
months are aligned with the Iranian months to which their first three weeks
correspond; Cyrillic letters in parentheses are longer used in Tajik (see 1.10).
1. хамал	J	Aries	4. апрел(ь)	Je-H1	April
2. савр	&	Taurus	5. май		May
3. давзо		Gemini	6. июн(ь)	oJ-J	June
4. саратон	jjUj-uu	Cancer	7. июл(ь)		July
5. асад	J 1 и 1	Leo	8. август	^±/1	August
6. сунбула	4 1 > Л u-u	Virgo	9. сентябр(ь)		September
7. мизон	(j' j-?-0	Libra	10. октябр(ь)		October
8. адраб	»—1	Scorpio	П.ноябр(ь)	^L.	November
9. каве		Sagittarius	12. декабр(ь)		December
10. дадй		Capricorn	1. януар(ь)		January
11. далв	jjj	Aquarius	2. феврал(ь)	Jjj-®	February
12. хут	iXj J-Л,	Pisces	3. март		March
Dates are expressed in concatenated izofat phrases as, e.g., (руз-и)
хабдахум-и (мох-и) июн-и (сол-и) хазор-у нухсад-у хаштод-у
хафт-и (милодй) j .1 j jIjjs (JL-) (ьЦ (jjj)
.r j jl" - A ‘17. VI. 1987 ad’. Adjacent years are: имсол
Jl J ‘this year’, порсол JL^jL ‘last year’, перорсол JL-ujIj_a_i
‘the year before last’; сол-и оянда ъаД-J JL^ ‘next year’.
Time of Day. A period of 24 hours is (як) шабонаруз (X^)
 л.‘a day-and-a-night’. This is divided roughly into the fol-
lowing periods: сахар j ~ ‘the small hours, pre-dawn’ (3-6 a.m.),
пагохй ‘early morning, the forenoon’ (6-10 a.m.), руз, пешин
j . Д . »< jjj ‘midday and early afternoon’ (10 a.m.—4 p.m.), бегохй
al<   ‘afternoon and early evening’ (4-7 p.m.), том ‘evening’
(7-10 p.m.), шаб ‘night’ (10 p.m.-3 a.m.).
The question соат чанд аст/ шуд? ? j—Д	c^-cl—ш
‘what time is it?’ (‘how much is the hour?’) may be more politely
174
CHAPTER TWO
phrased as шумо соат/ вахт надоред? *? з-j сзЗ j \cuxl_uu L-^i
‘do you have the time?’ (lit., ‘don’t you...?’, probably a caique on
Russian usage).
The 24-hour clock is in general use, counting time after and before
the hour in minutes (цадика < a _ аз) or fractions of an hour (чоряк
_£_. jLa. ‘quarter’, ним ‘half’).
Before the hour: (хозир) соат сездах-у бист-у як дадида аст
,21 о1 < a i aj । i j i.~ 11 n iij *.»J 'in ijxi r Lm	‘it is (now) 1:21
p.m.’, or аз сездах 21 дакика/ бист-у як-та гузашт(ааст) jl
ej-uul <~i.4i2lS \.zi L15Lj jc,»„ j;1 \<1_^аз	ojJ-xu-m ‘it is twenty-
one minutes past one’ (for -ta see 2.49); соат сездйд-у чоряк clucLuu
j _< .и ‘a quarter past one’, соат сездах-у ним .-xL
p j ~i j oaj i ui। ‘half past one’.
After the half-hour, the time remaining until the next hour is followed
by кам ‘less (than), short of’: (соат) хаждах дадида/ хаждах-та
кам чордах (шуд/ аст)	L азj_a> \<l_S_x_3j ajJ-л uu)
ej-uul \з_4> ‘it is eighteen minutes till two’ (‘two, less eighteen’), чоряк
кам чордах аз _>Ц. jLa. ‘a quarter till two’.
The 12-hour clock may also be used, with the traditional divisions
of the day to specify a.m. or p.m.: соат нух-у ним пагохй <lS e^xL-uu
j9:30 a.m.’.
If clock time is in the form of an adverbial, ‘at such o’clock’, then
the word соат c^x.1___is no longer the subject of a sentence, but the
head of a Specifying izofat, joined to the number by the izofat particle:
самолёт paco дар соат-и понздах парида рафт L^j .-,1 -II » ...
c_ui j 6352>Lj oucLxi Зз ‘the plane took off at 3 p.m. precisely’.
2.55 Everyday Mathematics
The paralinguistic displays of numerical notation that one “reads” are
to a great extent independent of language(s), and are nowadays seldom
written in linguistic terms. There are nevertheless occasions when they
need to be spoken and understood.
Fractions are expressed by the collocation ‘from three two (portions)’,
etc.: аз се ду (хисса) (<„^a	33 i__- 51 ‘two-thirds’, аз дах хафт
(хисса) (4—.X -ч) el а-Д> 63 JI ‘seven tenths’; but if the numerator is
morphology: nominals
175
‘one’ the preposition az is dropped, as well as the word hissa ‘portion,
part’: сеяк ‘one third’, чоряк ‘one quarter’, панч як
‘one fifth’, дахяк ^оз ‘one tenth, ten percent’. In Cyrillic
this is usually written as one word (esp. with monosyllabic numbers).
If the expression begins with an integer, this is often identified by
juxtaposition of the Turkic loanword бутун j_. ‘whole’: чор бутун-у
аз чор се «и- jL. jl 3 йз-^з^ ‘four and three-quarters’.
In a partitive phrase, the word к,исм ‘part’ is added, followed
by izofat'. аз дах нух дисм-и хосил J_^al___а. ____5 <t_i ьл jl ‘nine-
tenths of the harvest’ (‘from ten nine parts of...’), чоряк кисм-и
талабон-и синф > в  r> J 1-,	‘a quarter of the (stud-
ents of the) class’. Less formally, or as an approximation, this is omitted:
дар шаш-як-и руй замин j «-SLui-i jл ‘(over) one-sixth
of the earth’s surface’.
Percentage is expressed by postposing the word фоиз JjI—a ‘gaining,
profiting’ after the number: бист фоиз jjli -;; ‘20%’. An earlier,
informal, way is as a fraction: сад-як-и хонандагон Л и___________
jLSлД2>13А ‘one percent of readers’.
Decimals. The decimal point is usually written as a comma (вергул
JS зз) in Tajik: 2,251 is just over two-and-a-quarter units, not two-
and-a-quarter thousand. In speech, decimals are normally construed
like fractions, except that the integer, even if zero, begins the expression,
and az is always retained: 0,1 нол-у аз дах як (хисса) ьл jl 3 JL
(4	; 2,5 дую аз дах панд g-Ь ьл jl 3 33 ; 4,75 чор-у аз
сад хафтод-у панд 33LLLA з_^ jl 3 jU ; 3,0002 сею аз дах
Хазор ду 33 аз jlз<|  The integer may again be specified by
бутун (ЗзЗз-j ‘whole’: 27,85 бист-у хафт бутун-у аз сад хаштод-у
панд з **1 1" & jl 3 оз-'З-^ 1 -1 з г~1111 j
Arithmetic. The four basic operations are formally expressed by four
(Arabic) action nouns joined to the second term by izofat. these are
дамъ j-o_____a. ‘addition’, тарх £3-^= ‘subtraction’, зарб j______
‘multiplication’, and тадсим л_.‘division’. Informally, ‘plus’ and
‘minus’ are expressed by the Russian equivalents. ‘Equals’ is expressed
by the adjective баробар j_>I j_>, in izofat with the resulting total (‘ [isl
the equal of —see also 2.51, under Multiplicatives):
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CHAPTER TWO
2 + 4 = 6 ду дамъ-и чор баробар-и шаш Л. jLa. »- jj
(alternatively, плюус ‘plus’, without izofat. duplyus cor...)
10-3 = 7 дах, тарх,-и се баробар-и хафт	j_l= ej
(alternatively, минус ‘minus’, without izofat: dah minus se...).
2x2 = 4 ду зарб-и ду баробар-и чор	j_> u_.j____jj
(alternatively, карат ‘times’, without izofaf. du karat du...-,
cf. under Frequency, 2.51).
15 + 3 = 5 понздах, так,сим-и се баробар-и панд » ... о" 6jj.iL
Abjad. An old system of numerical notation uses the Arabic letters, in
the ancient sequence of the Semitic alphabet, with the following values:
1 1		6	3			60			600 t
2	4—3	7	j	20		70	t	200 j	700 j
3	c	8	C	30	J	80	4-9	300	800^
4	J	9	J=	40	c	90		400 cl,	900 Ji
5	_a	1C	’l?	50	<j	100 J		500 cl,	1000 j-
The term abjad is taken from the sounds of the first four letters. In CP
this system was used mostly in literary games, such as chronograms,
where a memorable year would be encoded in a word or phrase the
letters of which, when added together (or in other permutations), gave
the matching number. Thus the date of the death of Tamerlane (Timur)
is commemorated in the phrase j д Л. Ijj vido ’-i sahryori ‘fare-
well to royalty’, i.e., year 807 of the Hijra (1404-5 ce).
Nowadays it is used only as an alternative series to the arabic
numerals, much as Roman numerals are used in the West in listing
subheads or numbering the preliminary pages of a book. The letters are
written together like words, from the higher to the lower ranges: thus
rc—о is 43.
CHAPTER THREE
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
VERB STRUCTURE
3.1 Overview
The Tajik Persian verb system has evolved along independent lines in
more complex patterns than that of Standard Persian. The traditional
framework of Arabic-based Classical Persian grammar never came to
grips with its newer manifestations. It was described and codified initially
using the theoretical principles and terminology of Russian linguistics,
somewhat different from those of the Western European and American
descriptive linguists who studied Persian of Iran or Afghanistan. Persian
verbs on both sides of the Oxus have proved equally subtle and resistant
to a unified theory and terminology. The descriptive framework and
terms used here are intended to be practical and comprehensible; where
they differ significantly from those of existing Tajik grammars, this
will be mentioned parenthetically.
The basic forms of the Tajik verb are the same as in Standard
Persian, and especially in their complete personal inflection offer striking
analogies with other Indo-European verbal paradigms. However, Tajik
has considerably expanded the Persian aspecto-temporal system, both
in number of forms and range of functions. The system as described
here comprises, in conventional parlance, two voices: Active and Passive;
four moods: Indicative, Imperative, Subjunctive and Conjectural (cf.
three in SP, lacking the Conjectural) and two epistemic modes or
“viewpoints,” which we will call “Witnessed” and “Non-Witnessed”
(3.21; these are contrasted within both the Indicative and—in one tense
only—the Subjunctive). These categories intersect with a total of 19
tense paradigms and 3 “quasi-tenses,” i.e., non-grammaticalized future
or progressive constructions (12 + 1 in SP). Each of the tenses has its
parallel in the Passive.
Fig. 3.1 Tentative Synopsis of the Tajik Tenses
'\raNSE MOOD\	REMOTE PAST	PAST	PRESENT	NEAR FUTURE	FUTURE	TENSED'"' ,-^^ASPECT
Indic-	kard 12		me-kun-ad 10	=	xoh-adkard 14	Perfective
ative,	me-kard* 13		II	[kardani-ast] 42		Imperf.
Wit-	karda istoda bud 19		k. istoda-ast 18	[/c. me-is tad] 20		Progressive
nessed	karda bud 16	karda-ast 15				Resultative
Non-	karda buda-ast 23	"	21	> (buda-ast)			Perfective
Wit-	karda istoda	buda-ast 24				Progressive
nessed		me-karda-ast 22				Imperf.
Sub-		me-karda bosad**	27			Imperf.
junc-	karda bosad 26		kunad 25			Perfective
tive			k. istoda bosad 28	[karda istad] 20		Progressive
Imperative			[£. isto, - isted] 20	kun, kunedl-ton 29		Prog. 1 Perf.
Con-		karda-gi-st 31	> (buda-gi-st)			Perfective
ject-			k. istoda-gi-st 33			Progressive
oral			me-karda-gi-st 32			Imperf.
к = karda
* These tenses also serve as conditionals
* Non-Witnessed subjunctive (and conditional)	[Quasi-tenses]
CHAPTER THREE
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
179
The tense paradigms are presented and discussed in Sections 3.9-33,
in approximate order of morphological complexity. Fig. 3.1 lists them
under the 3sg. form (2sg. and pl. for the Imperative) of the verb кардан/
>	X
кун-	‘to do, make’, in a display illustrating time reference
as against mood (mode) and aspect. The number after each tense indicates
the section of Chapter 3 under which it is described, with its standard
designation and full paradigm in Cyrillic and Perso-Arabic; thus the
Simple Past tense, кард[-ам] [^]jmay be found at 3.12. The Passive
voice tenses, not displayed here, are listed in 3.34; non-finite forms
(infinitives and participles) are discussed under 3.37-46.
Tajik verb forms in brackets in Fig. 3.1 are “quasi-tenses,” i.e.,
constructions in which the auxiliary has not been grammaticalized into
a fixed form in a compound tense (as has xoh- in the Definite Future,
or istoda in the progressive tenses), but varies independently in tense,
mood, etc.
The groups of rows under the rubric “Mood,” separated in the case
of Indicative-Subjunctive-Conjectural by double lines, are not uniform-
ly watertight compartments. The Imperative mood, conceptually and
structurally affiliated with the Subjunctive, comprises a single, reduced
paradigm, and is shown separated from the Subjunctive compartment
by a single line. Similarly, a single line separates the Witnessed, or
unmarked, viewpoint of the Indicative or common mood from the
Non-Witnessed viewpoint (see 3.21-24). Here the Perfect tense form
карда-аст  ! bleeds across the viewpoint boundary, since it
functions both in the Resultative aspect of the unmarked Indicative
(‘has done’; 3.15) and as the Non-Witnessed counterpart of the Past
Perfective (‘[reportedly] did’; 3.21).
The second occurrence of this bifunctional tense, below the broken
modal boundary, is indicated by ditto marks; the parenthetical buda-ast
in the adjacent Present time column indicates that the verb ‘to be’ in
this form and function refers to present, not past, time (‘[reportedly]
is’). The same holds true of the corresponding tense of the Conjectural
mood, буда-ги-ст	j_. ‘probably is/ must be’ (3.31; the verb
доштан j-» -I '‘to have’ likewise gives a present meaning in these
tenses, though it does not occur as frequently as budan).
Another tense form with three sufficiently separate functions (tern-
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CHAPTER THREE
poral and aspectual) is the Present Indicative мекунад	on the
first and second lines (‘does’; 3.10). It also serves—like its English
counterpart—as the habitual-iterative present (ditto marks) and also
the general Future (the = sign under “Near Future”).
A second case of cross-modal bleeding is that of the Non-Witnessed
durative (imperfective aspect) ме-карда-аст .2^1 sjj_£	‘[report-
edly] has been/ is/ will be doing’; 3.22), which has a corresponding
Subjunctive тме-карда бошад л ii.L.	(3.27). These two
forms appear to be indifferent to tense, and are graphically represented
as stretching across the three central, adjacent time columns, with the
same aspectual value, and the second of them sharing both Non-
Witnessed and Subjunctive modalities.
The three quasi-tenses represented in Fig. 3.1 (they are not the only
ones available) all designate an action conceived, beginning, or already
afoot, in present time, and continuing into the immediate future. This
is clear in the case of the quasi-progressive (3.20), e.g., ош гарм
ме-истад > ~ ... .1	‘the food is heating up’ (Indicative),
ош гарм истад л~>..._J	‘let the food heat up’ (Subjunctive).
The Imperative, e.g., ту хонда исто I "	j-S ‘you go on
reading’, may refer to an action already occurring (Present time column),
unlike the normal “punctual”- imperative (kun/ kuned), where the action
commanded may only begin after the moment of speech (Near Future
column). The quasi-future tense, using the Future Participle (карданй
аст ...I	___£ ‘is going to do, supposed to do’, 3.42), usually
ex presses an intention to act or a future act already determined; the
Present future mekunad has only a formal connection with future time,
and the Definite future хох,ад кард jла I (3.14) ideally has no
connection with the present.
There are other asymmetries, such as the use of the imperfect past
tense mekard as a (counterfactual) Conditional, and a preference in
some tenses for certain verbs or persons over others, which cannot be
represented here but will emerge from the illustrations and discussion
of particular paradigms.
Non-finite forms. Among a dozen verbal nouns and adjectives, there
are two Infinitives, an active/ Present Participle, a Future Participle, a
Present-Future Participle, and two passive/ Past Participles, each with
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
181
a Progressive form (cf. two infinitives and three comparable participles
in SP; see Fig. 3.40). Of these, all except the Present Participle participate
in the construction of compound tenses.
One of the past participles (strictly speaking, a gerund with the
same form) participates in the construction of Conjunct (or serial)
verbs, which are inseparable Aktionsart forms, i.e., verb-adverb com-
posites (5.20-21). These are appropriately described, like the Complex
and Composite verbs, under the lexicon (Chapter 5); indeed, the
interaction of gerunds, participles and auxiliaries makes it advisable
for any reader wishing to gain a fully synoptic view of the Tajik verb
system to study Sections 5.13-21 in conjunction with Chapter 3.
Stress (see also 1.6). Stress (properly, accent) is a combination of
expiratory force and higher pitch, a full discussion of which is beyond
the scope of this ready-reference work. In non-finite forms (participles
and infinitives) it follows the rule for nominals, i.e., primary stress
falls on the final syllable; this usually holds also when such a form is
included in a finite composite: xarida bud-ат ‘ I had bought’ (except
in the Definite Future, where stress may fall on the personal ending of
the auxiliary: xoham xarid).
Of the tense formatives, the personal endings (3.4) are enclitics,
not subject to stress, whereas the prefixes (3.5) are stressed. Prefix
stress has priority, and in a form with more than one prefix, the stress
moves recessively to the head of the verb: me-xarid-am ‘I would buy’,
na-me-xarid-am-as ‘I would not have bought it’. In polysyllabic stem-
initial forms, stress usually falls on the first syllable: xarid-am ‘I bought’,
parto ‘throw!’. In Complex and Composite verbs, stress falls on the
preverb or other non-verbal component: bar-gardem ‘let’s go back’,
pur nakardand1 they didn’t fill [it]’.
A consistent exception is that stress (high pitch) falls on the syllable
before the Interrogative enclitic -мй (4.8), even when this is a
personal ending: navisted-mil ‘have you written [it]?’. There are many
cases where sentence intonation interacts with the word-specific rules
sketched here, or where, say, a negative prefix may be old information,
or a bi- imperative prefix be part of a cliche (e.g., 3.29), and the
normal rules are overridden. Particular points of intonation and ortho-
graphy will be noted under individ-ual conjugations.
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CHAPTER THREE
3.2 Stem Classes (1)
Every Tajik verb has two stems: Stem I (traditionally called the “present
stem,” from which are formed present tenses, and present and active
participles) and Stem 11 (the “past stem,” from which are formed past
tenses, past and passive participles, and infinitives).
Stem II always ends in a dental, -t or -d. On this are formed:
(1)	Two infinitives: the “long infinitive” (here, usually designated the
Infinitive), by addition of -am гирифт-ан	‘to take, (the)
taking’, шуд-ан & ‘to become, (the) becoming’ (primarily an
action noun, which functions mainly as a nominal); and the “short
infinitive,” identical with Stem II itself (of limited application in
the verbal system; for both infinitives, see 3.37)
(2)	Two past (active or passive) participles: Past Participle I by suf-
fixation of -a гирифта ‘(having [been]) taken’, шуда
‘(having) become’. From this is derived Past Participle II, by
addition of -гй to the base, as гирифтагй aшудагй
(see 3.43—44f
Stem II can always be derived from the infinitive by deleting the final
syllable -an. Verbs are divided morphologically into two form classes:
Regular, in which Stem I is derived from Stem II by deletion of the
final dental and sometimes the segment before it; and Irregular, in
which the form of one stem is not infallibly predictable from that of
the other. We may distinguish three categories of Regular verbs:
(1)	Stem II in -nd > Stem I in -n-: e.g., kand-an ‘to dig; strip off, etc.’
> II kand- > I kan-; mondan ‘to stay; put’ > II mond- > I mon-.
There are relatively few primitive verbs on this pattern, but it
accounts for (optionally) all the denominal and Causative verbs
(5.13-15; and see under (2) below), e.g., хобондан jjjLIj-i ‘to
lay down, put to bed’: Stem 1 хобон- -_SLJ
(2)	Stem II polysyllabic, in -Bid- > Stem I in -В: “B” stands for
whatever consonant or vowel precedes the terminal segment -idfan)
of the past stem/ infinitive: e.g., талабидан к ‘to demand’
talabid an> II talabid- > I talab- ; расидан _> ...j ‘to arrive’
rasid-an > II rasid- > I ras-. This pattern accounts for the bulk of
simplex verbs, including the denominals (5.13) and (optionally)
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
183
all the derived Causative verbs (5.14). This claim does not contradict
that made under (1), since Causatives are formed on Stem I with
either -on-dan or -on-idan\ e.g., мукофотонидан j\L3l_alSL<>
‘to requite, reward’: Stem Iмукофотон-
Stated in this way, to apply only to verbs with more than one
syllable in Stem II, this rule admits of no exceptions. The category
includes all the regular variants of irregular verbs listed in Figs.
3.3a-c, except чиндан/ чин- - \_i>\ j.' ‘to pick; arrange’
(because it is stem-monosyllabic; in any case, it falls under cate-
gory 1).
(3)	Stem II in -onist- > Stem I in -on-, only three common verbs:
тавонистан /тавон- -_jl \j~ '!jS tavonist-an ‘to be able’ >
II tavonist- > I tavon-', on the same pattern, донистан/дон-
-_Jj \j~ . .•J./tO know’, МОНИСТаН /МОН- -_SL-a \j~' ,\|_д ‘to
resemble’. (Note that monistan and mondan ‘to stay; put, let’ in
Category 1 coincidentally have identical Present Stems.)
It follows that Stem II (and hence the Infinitive) of a regular verb may
be deduced from Stem I if the verb is known to be regular; if not,
there is no way of knowing, e.g., that Stem I zan- is from zfldan ‘to
strike’, or that band- is from bastan ‘to tie, close’. A number of irregular
verbs in fact have an alternative regular Stem II, backformed from
Stem I; these are noted in Figs. 3.3a-c.
3.3 Stem Classes (2)
Irregular verbs are those in which Stem I is not reliably predictable
from Stem II, or vice versa. Within this class, Stem II may end in -od-,
-ud, -id-, -ad-, -ist-, -rd-, -ft-, -st-, -xt-, or -st-. The corresponding Stem
I may exhibit one of several recurring patterns, or none; hence the
irregular verbs are listed completely in Fig. 3.3a-c below.
Here some of the sound patterns perceptible in stem correspondence
are summarized, with examples, in the order: Stem II/ Stem I. It will
be seen that the patterns are of two kinds: consonantal and vocalic,
often in combination; and that they are easily learned (and too easily
over-generalized).
184
CHAPTER THREE
-	ud-l -о-: осудан/ осо(й)—(_j)I .-J \jjj ^1 ‘to rest’; but
gunudan! gunav- ‘to snooze, nap’, budanJ bos- ‘to be, stay’.
-	id-1 -in:-: чидан/ чин— '»_ \ji ‘to pick; arrange’; but
sunidan! sunav- ‘to hear’, didan! bin- (see below).
-odd -ih-: додан/ дих;—\jjIj ‘to give’; but istodan/ ist-
‘to stop, stand’, aftodan! aft- ‘to fall, drop’.
-rdd -г-: бурдан/ бар- -j_i \ jjj_j ‘to bear’; but murdan! mir-
ormur- ‘to die’, supurdan/supor- ‘to entrust’.
-	ft-! -b:~: ёфтан/ ёб- -_jL ‘to find, receive’; but raftan!
rav- ‘to go’, ruftan! rub- ‘to sweep’, guftan! gii- ‘to speak’.
-	st-l -h-: костан/ кох,—_alS	‘to decrease’; butnisast-
an! nisin- ‘to sit’, zistan! z.i- ‘to live’.
-xtd -z-: рехтан/ рез—‘to spill; pour’; but
foriixt- an! fords- ‘to sell’, sinoxtanf sinos- ‘to know,
recognize’.
-	Std -г-: гумоштан/ гумор—jU>_2 \jT Л.1 n ‘to appoint’; but
gastan! gard- ‘to turn, become’.
One verb employs two unrelated stems: дидан/ бин- \ ‘to
see’.
There are a few pairs of verbs with both irregular and regularized
Stem II forms, as хуфтан/ хоб- -_»lj_________a. \j-3___a___i. and хобидан
jл  ,lj<‘to sleep, lie down’ (the regular infinitive is formed by adding
-idan to Stem I); in some cases, as in this, the irregular form is the
more literary.
A number of verbs have composite synonyms, made from a verbal
noun based on Stem I plus an auxiliary verb, e.g., гиристан/ гиря-
\j~ and гиря кардан jj<^>-2 ‘to weep’ (for this
Present stem see 3.9. Note that the auxiliary kardan is irregular); such
composites are usually more common in speech and everyday usage
than the simplex verbs.
The terms “Regular” and “Irregular” refer only to stem relationships;
except for the verb ‘to be’ (3.6-7), all conjugations and other verb
forms are regularly derived from the stems. Any contextual and
orthographic peculiarities are mentioned under Personal Inflections (3.4)
and the various conjugations (3.8-33). Most of these minor adjustments
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
185
involve Stems I of Irregular verbs which end in a vowel, followed by
the (usually) optional semi-vowel /у/ (see 1.8, 1.11, 1.12, and Figs.
3.3); they are exemplified below by Present tense paradigms of the
verbs guftan/ gH(y)- ‘to say’ (Fig. 3.4) and omadan! o(y)- ‘to come’
(Fig. 3.10b).
The Irregular verbs are listed completely in Fig. 3.3a-c, in the
conventional form: Infinitive/ Stem I, and Stem I/ Infinitive, as follows:
Fig. 3.3a Infinitive [Stem II] -> Stem I, Cyrillic (alphabetical order)
and Perso-Arabic (approximately alphabetical), with glosses; pp.
186-89.
Fig. 3.3b: Stem I —> infinitive [Stem II], Cyrillic; pp. 190-91.
Fig. 3.3c: Stem I —> infinitive [Stem II], Perso-Arabic; pp. 192-93.
By means of the three lists, either stem may be looked up in either of
the scripts. (The base count of 120 verbs varies slightly in the three
lists because of variant stem forms and the features of the writing
systems.)
Common regularized forms of the Infinitive/ Stem II are noted in
Figs. 3.3b and 3.3c. Complex verbs, consisting of a preverb and a
simple verb (see 3.10, 5.16-17), are indented in the tables (only in
Cyrillic in Fig. 33a).
186
CHAPTER THREE
Rg. 3.3a Irregular Verb Stems: Infinitive —> Stem I (Present Stem)
Infinitves are listed in order of the Tajik Cyrillic alphabet. Common complex
verbs (simple verbs with preverbs, normally written in Cyrillic as one word:
see 5.15-16) are indented. Regular synonyms with the same Stem I (=) are
not listed; irregular variants with the same Stem I (cf.) are listed alphabetically.
ангехтан/ ангез-
ангоштан/ ангор-
андохтан/ андоз-
афзудан/ афзо(й)-
афрохтан/ афроз-
афроштан/ афроз-
афрухтан/ афруз-
афтодан/ афт-
афшурдан/ афшор-
stir, arouse, excite, urge
consider, think
throw, cast
add, increase
raise
raise
kindle, inflame
fall (= aftidan)
press, squeeze
барангехтан/ барангез- urge, incite
барафроштан/ барафроз- hoist
барафрухтан/ барафруз- inflame
баргаштан/ баргард-
бардоштан/ бардор-
барзадан/ барзан-
баровардан/ барор-
баромадан/ баро(й)-
бархостан/ бархез-
бастан/ банд-
бехтан/ без-
бозгаштан/ бозгард-
бозгуфтан/ бозгу(й)-
боздоштан/ боздор-
бохтан/ боз-
будан/ бош-
бурдан/ бар-
tum back, return
pick up, remove
roll up, tuck up
bring out, produce
come out, emerge
stand up, rise
close, tie
sieve
go back, return
repeat
detain, restrain
lose, forfeit
be
bear, carry; win
водоштан/ водор- compel, constrain, cause jlj Ij \j.a ^1j Ij
гаштан/ гард- turn; stroll; become (= gardidan)	\ф~ ЛЛ
гиристан/ гиря- *	weep, cry	* \фЗ...
гирифтан/ гир-	take, seize, get	-
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
187
Rg. 3.3a Irregular Verb Stems: Infinitive—» Stem I (continued)
гудохтан/ гудоз-	melt (tr.)	-Jlak
гузаштан/ гузар-	pass, cross	
гузоштан/ гузор-	pass (tr.), let	— j 1\(3 1
гумоштан/ гумор-	appoint, commission	- jLok
гурехтан/ гурез-	flee, escape, avoid	—3-\i3 1
гусехтан/ гусел-	break off, detach	
гусистан/ гусел-	break off, detach	
гуфтан/ гу(й)-	say	
гундоштан/ гундор-	gather (tr.)	—j I j (3^ \<3Л	сЗ-^
рунудан/ ганав-	snooze, nap	\jaj-kc
даргиригтан/ даргир-	catch fire	
дар(ь)ёфтан/ дар(ь)ёб discover, realize		——j j \t3S-flLj j j
даровардан/ дарор-	bring in, introduce	
даромадан/ даро(й)-	come in, enter	—(-^)I
дидан/ бин-	see	
додан/ дих,-, дех,- *	give	* —-Да \jala
доштан/ дор-	have, hold	—\(3"A i
духтан/ дуз-	sew	
ёфтан/ ёб-	find, receive	-\jj-aLj
задан/ зан-	hit, strike	“-j j \dJ j
зистан/ зи(й)- *	live	* --7? j	j
зудудан/ зудо(й)-	clean, scrub, polish	
истодан/ ист-	stand, stop	- jl \jal~im_il
кардан/ кун-	do, make	-.sk \ jaj£
киштан /кор-	sow, plant (cf. kostari)	
костан/ кох,-	decrease, diminish	-_д£ VA-lk
кофтан/ коб-, ков-	dig	-jis
коштан/ кор-	sow, plant (cf. kestari)	
кушодан/ кушо(й)-	open, untie	— (—l	jl
куфтан/ куб- beat, thresh; mince (= kiibidan)
мурдан/ мур-, мир-	die	9
навиштан/ навис-	write	
навохтан/ навоз-	play (mus. instrument)	
намудан/ намо(й)-	appear, seem	
188
CHAPTER THREE
Rg. 3.3a	Irregular Verb Stems: Infinitive —i		► Stem I (continued)
нигаристан/ нигар-	look, watch	—j	\	x,..i j \
нигоштан/ нигор-	depict, paint	
нишастан/ нишин-	sit (down), settle	~ ‘‘J1"'1
них,одан/ них-, нех,- *	put, place	
овардан/ овар-, ор-	bring	
овехтан/ овез-	hang(up)	
озмудан/ озмо(й)-	test, try	
озурдан/ озор-	offend, injure	
олудан/ оло(й)-	stain, soil, pollute	-(^W
омадан/ о(й)-	come	
омехтан/ омез-	mix, mingle	—-> j J
омухтан/ омуз-	learn, teach	- jj-af
оростан/ орой-	adorn, embellish	
осудан/ осо(й)-	rest	
офаридан/ офарин-	create	-.^>1
ошуфтан/ ошуб-	be disturbed, alarmed	
пазируфтан/ пазир-	accept, receive	—\о-а-аЭт‘‘Х1
пайвастан/ пайванд-	join, limk, connect	
паймудан/ паймо(й)-	measure, traverse	-(-)L^Xo^
пардохтан/ пардоз-	pay	
партофтан/ партоб-	throw (away)	
пиндоштан/ пиндор-	think, suppose	
пухтан/ паз-	boil, cook; ripen	~ j—» \o	1
рабудан/ рабо-	snatch (away), steal	-Le j \dJ>* j
рафтан/ рав-	go	-jj XgA^j
рехтан/ рез-	spill; pour	-j^j XgH-4?J
руфтан/ руб-	sweep	_-?jj XdA^jj
сохтан/ соз-	make, build	— j 1 i.M	1	1 x~*f
судан/ со(й)-	rub, wring	—\o J3-LU
супурдан/супор- entrust, deliver (= suporidari) -jl-  \u 'jj		
сурудан/ capo-	sing	
сутудан/ сито(й)-	praise	—(_j)la_uu \jjJjJj-uj
суфтан/ сунб-	polish; drill, bore	— J ,.L i U	111
сухтан/ суз-	bum (intr.)	— ‘ ** 1,1
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
189
Rg. 3.3a. Irregular Verb Stems: Infinitive —> Stem I (concluded)
тофтан/ тоб-
тофтан/ тоб-
shine
twist, screw
тохтан/ тоз-
фармудан/ фармо(й)-
фаромадан
run, gallop, charge	-J Is
order
descend, alight (cf. furomadan) -I j_s \<jIj-s
фарсудан/ фарсо(й)-
wear out (tr., intr.)

фирефтан/ фиреб-
фиристодан/ фирист-
фуромадан/ фуро(й)-
фурухтан/ фуруш-
send
descend, alight
sell
deceive, trick, seduce

хестан/ хез-
хостан/ хох,-
хуфтан/ хоб-
rise, stand up
wish, want, ask for
sleep, lie down (= xobidari)
чидан/ чин-
частан/ ч,ах,-
чустан/ ЧУ(Й)-
шикастан/ шикан-
шинохтан/ шинос-
шитофтан/ шитоб-
шиштан/ шин-
шудан/ шав-
pick, pluck; arrange (= cindan) - '»»>
jump, leap
seek, search
break
know, recognize
hurry, hasten
sit (down)
become, happen
шумурдан/ шумор-
шунидан/ шунав-
шустан/ шу(й)-
count, reckon
hear
wash
* Orthographic peculiauties of these verbs are described in 3.9.
190
CHAPTER THREE
Rg. 3.3b Irregular Verbs: Stem I (Present) —> Infinitive: Cyrillic
Complex verbs are indented. For meanings, see Fig. 3.3a.
ангез- /ангехтан
ангор- /ангоштан
андоз- /андохтан
афзо(й)- /афзудан
афроз- /афрохтан; афроштан
афруз- /афрухтан
афт-/афтодан; афтидан
афшор- /афшурдан
банд- /бастан
бар- /бурдан
барангез- /-ангехтан
барафроз- /-афроштан
барафруз- /-афрухтан
баргард- /-баргаштан
бардор- /-бардоштан
барзан- /-барзадан
баро(й)- /баромадан
барор-/баровардан
бархез- /бархостан
без- /бехтан
бин-/дидан
боз- /бохтан
бозгард- /бозгаштан
бозгу(й)- /бозгуфтан
боздор- /боздоштан
бош- /будан
водор- /водоштан
гард- /гаштан; гардидан
гиря- /гиристан *
гир- /гирифтан
гудоз- /гудохтан
гузар- /гузаштан
гузор- /гузоштан
гумор- /гумоштан
гурез- /гурехтан
гусел- /гусехтан; гусастан
гу(й)- /гуфтан
ганав- /гунудан
рундор- /рундоштан
даргир- /даргирифтан
дар(ь)ёб- /дар(ь)ёфтан
даро(й)- /даромадан
дарор-/даровардан
дех, /додан *
дих- /додан*
дор- /доштан
дуз- /духтан
ёб- /ёфтан
зан- /задан
зи(й)- /зистан *
зудо(й)- /зудудан
ист- /истодан
коб- /кофтан
ков- /кофтан
кор-/коштан; киштан
код-/костан
кун- /кардан
кушо(й)- /кушодан
куб- /куфтан; кубидан
мир- /мурдан
мур- /мурдан
навис- /навиштан
навоз- /навохтан
намо(й)- /намудан
нех /ниходан *
нигар- /нигаристан
нигор- /нигоштан
нишин- /нишастан
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
191
Rg. 3.3b Stem I (Present Stem) —> Infinitive: Cyrillic (concluded)
них,- /ниходан *
о(й)- /омадан
овез- /овехтан
озмо(й)- /озмудан
озор- /озурдан
оло(й)- /олудан
омез- /омехтан
омуз- /омухтан
ор- /оварданорой- /оростан
осо(й)- /осудан
офарин- /офаридан
ошуб- /ошуфтан
паз- /пухтан
пазир- /пазируфтан
пайванд- /пайвастан
паймо(й)- /паймудан
пардоз- /пардохтан
партоб- /партофтан
пиндор- /пиндоштан
рабо-/рабудан
рав- /рафтан
рез- /рехтан
руб- /руфтан
capo- /сурудан
сито(й)- /сутудан
со(й)- /судан
соз - /сохтан
сунб- /суфтан
супор-/супурдан; супоридан
суз- /сухтан
тоб- /тофтан
тоз- /тохтан фармо(й)-
/фармудан
фаро(и)- /фаромадан
фарсо(й)- /фарсудан
фиреб- /фирефтан
фирист- /фиристодан
фуро(й)- /фуромадан
фуруш- /фурухтан
хез- /хестан
хоб-/хуфтан; хобидан
хох- /хостан
чин- /чидан; чиндан
чах- /дастан
ЧУ(й)- /дустан
шав- /шудан
шикан- /шикастан
шин- /шиштан
шинос- /шинохтан
шитоб- /шитофтан
шумор- /шумурдан
шунав- /шунидан
шу(й)- /шустан
* Orthographic peculiarities of these verbs are described in 3.9.
192
CHAPTER THREE
Rg. 3.3c Irregular Verbs: Stem I (Pres.) —> Infinitive, Perso-Arabic
Complex verbs are indented. For meanings, see Fig. 3.3a.
(jjj ли \ —
lA“3^ \
CA^3J \-

morphology: verbs
193
Rg. 3.3c Stem I (Present) —> Infinitive, Perso-Arabic (concluded)

\ — JjX
(jjlp \ -_flj
jjj-ilj lj \ — jlj lj
* Orthographic peculiarities of these verbs are described in 3.9.
194
CHAPTER THREE
3.4	Personal Inflections
The person of the agent of the action denoted by a finite verb is
identified unambiguously by one of six inflectional endings on Stem I
or Stem II of the verb. In Fig. 3.4, full examples of the orthographic
variants on a stem ending in a vowel (as of гуфтан/ гу(й)- ~ ° <
‘to say’) are given only for the Perso-Arabic forms, since the
Cyrillic variants are limited to -a- (consonant stems) or -я- (vowel
stems) in 1st singular and 3rd singular and plural.
Fg. 3.4 Verb: PersonalEndings
Isg.	-ам/ -ям j»_j- \j»-	гуям
2sg.	Й lA*\<-£~	
	Imperative [Stem 1+ zero]	ту/ бигу Ат1 \A
3sg.	Pres, -ад/ -яд	гуяд
	Past [Stem 11+ zero]	гуфт
Ipl.	-ем	f jj- \f-^_	
2pl.	-ед д-il-	\j-j-	
	-стон	Ls j—j— i L.i—>—	[(jLj j j 'X .jl'i
		
•	(j 1й	• (j L J-AJ—	
3pl.	-анд/ -янд jAj- \+S-	гуянд jA-A
These are all the personal endings in common use. They are unstressed,
and may be subject to orthographic variants depending on the phonology
of particular stems (for paradigms of Past and Present conjugations of
the consonant-stem verb kardan/ kun-, see Fig. 3.10a and Fig. 3.12
respectively; for the Present of another vowel-final Stem I, omadant
o(y)-, see Fig. 3.10b). The endings are the same for tenses formed on
Stem I (Present) as on Stem II (Past), with the sole exception of the
3rd person singular: in past tenses, this ending is zero, i.e. the finite
form is the same as that of Stem II: гу-яд ‘let him say’, гуфт
.-«< ‘he said’.
In the singular of the Imperative mood the base form ends in zero,
i.e., it is identical with the bare stem; the plural adds the usual 2nd pl.
ending -id (for further refinements, see 3.5, 3.7, 3.8, 3.20, 3.29).
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
195
The orthographic variants in 1st and 3rd singular, and 3rd plural,
with initial -я—(_$- (separated by a slash /) indicate the insertion of a
euphonic /у/ after a Stem I ending in a vowel (or elision with a stem-final
/у/; see the examples above, and Figs. 3.6a and 3.10b). This distinction
is obligatory in both scripts.
The Perso-Arabic variants in 2nd singular and 1st and 2nd plural
(separated by a comma) occur after stem vowels /о/ (alif L-), /и/ and
/й/ (vov j-), to mark the insertion of a glide before vocalic and
preserve its reading as a vowel (cf. Fig. 3.10a). Insertion of this buffer
letter in Perso-Arabic script is obligatory, but it has one of two forms:
hamza ₽ (usual in earlier Central Asian and Indo-Persian texts) and yo
(usual in modern Iranian writing). The latter convention is adopted
here. This variation does not affect the pronunciation, e.g., /giiye/,
/giiyem/, /giiyed/, /guyeton/ (initial stress). The /у/ sound of this glide is
not as noticeable as that between the dissimilar vowels и-a or о-a; the
combination will be represented in transcription as /иуе/, /йуе/ or /оуе/.
In colloquial and dialect pronunciation, 2nd pl. -ed may be realized
as l-el, and 3rd pl. -and as /-an/.
Appropriate personal pronouns may precede the verb: ман гуфт-ам
л ~ о < о—° T said’, etc. Pronominal enclitics are not used with finite
verbs (though the 2nd pl. colloquial variant -eton is in origin a pronominal
enclitic; see below). Since the person is identified by the verb form, it
is not necessary to add personal pronouns. In the written language,
once the identity of the agent is established, the verb alone suffices,
unless particular emphasis or contrast (e.g., with a change of subject)
requires the addition of a noun, name, or pronoun: Иброхдм ба хона
даромад. (Вай) хеле монда шуда буд. Писар-аш он до буд; у
хеста... ,jj_i oj_Д 6J-LI_о О1 j A. (l$j) - j—
 < jl I 7- J:-j .- .‘Ihrohim came home. [He] was very
tired. His son was there; he got up and...’. The use of pronouns is more
common in the spoken language (and overall more frequent than in
SP).
The semantics of the person corresponds to that of the personal
pronouns (see 2.27). In sum:
1st Person (‘I, we’). Inclusive and exclusive “we” both employ 1st
plural: ман-у шумо ме-дон-ем	I » Л. ‘you and I
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know’, ман ва/ бо онх,о хдмрох, омад-ем I___________I \j
af j_cut ‘They and I came together’ (lit. ‘I and they’ or ‘1
with them’; note that first person pronouns usually precede other
persons in coordinates).
2nd Person (‘you’). 2nd singular is the familiar or informal mode of
address, and 2nd plural is the polite or formal mode, both singular
and plural, as well as being the informal plural: (ту) ме-о-й,
ука-дон?	jl	(yi) ‘are you coming, little broth-
er?’; (шумо) на-рафт-ед, даноб-и Халилзод? . » ~ I ~ л,
S jljl ilА. «_jLlo. ‘Didn’t you go, Mr. Khalilzod?’.
Explicit plural. The variant -етон J Lb- originates in the addition
of the 2pl. pronominal enclitic -(a)ton to the corresponding personal
ending of the verb; in Perso-Arabic it may also be written in full,
e.g., JL ,<1'1*4 ‘you [pl.] are doing’, jLj ‘you did’. It is
used (colloquially) to specify plural addressees (formal or informal),
as distinct from a polite plural actually designating a single person:
шинетон, рафик,он jla/aj .Iл *_ ‘sit down, friends’. This
form is most commonly found in the Imperative (3.29), but may
also occur in the Indicative and other moods, especially in questions:
шумоён пул-и накд на-дор-етон? j___________U Jj_j jl J _________i
S(jLb jib ‘Don’t you people have any cash?’
The 2nd person (sg. or pl., according to the stylistic register;
without pronoun) may be used for the universal ‘you’ of proverbs
or editorial comment: хох, ба Москва равй, хох, ба Фаргона,
хона-и худ-ат <О(_А <<isLcj_i 4 ь1	ол <_ ь1 jb.
uujj___A. ‘whether you go to Moscow or to Ferghana, you’ll find
hospitality’ (‘[my] house is yours’); шабона ин до о-ед, боз
зиёдтар дар хдйрат ме-афт-ед 5 jL <л.цТ I >jI <Ol->
' j ". al lXjj _i > ‘come here at night, and you will be even
more amazed’.
3rd Person. Like the pronouns, the 3rd person verb may refer to male,
female, or inanimate agents.
The 3rd plural -and, without a pronoun, is used to denote an
indefinite ‘they’ or ‘one’: ох,ан-ро дар гарми-аш ме-куб-анд
л '. .j <е> » (ji-j—oj-S jj I jj-лГ ‘one strikes iron while it is hot’
(prov., lit., ‘they strike... in its heat’). This is much used in sentences
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
197
where focus is on the recipient of the action rather than the agent,
where English tends to use the passive voice: уро дар сол-и
1934 кушта-анд I <t IAS JL^ jj Ijjl ‘he was killed in
1934’ (‘they killed him...’, i.e., persons unknown, or known but
irrelevant); cf. 3.35).
The plural -and may refer in respectful usage to a singular
subject: падар-атон омаданд-мй?	‘has your
father come?’ (for the Interrogative enclitic, see 4.8).
Dialect and vernacular variants of these endings include 3sg. /-a/ and
/-at/ in present tenses: merawa, merawat ‘(he, etc.) goes’; 2pl. /-et/ and
/-e/: raftet, rafte ‘you went’; 3pl. /-an/: merawan ‘they go’. An apparent
reflex of the (nominal) diminutive affix -ак ci- (5.2) occurs in some
dialect forms, e.g. 3sg. past tenses in Varzobi: in-as raft-ak, dil-am
siixt ‘she left, and I was devastated’ (‘my heart burned’).
3.5	Prefixes
There are three current verbal prefixes (and two archaic ones), which
determine the modalities of negation, imperfectivity (durative-habitual-
conditional), and irrealis (Subjunctive-Imperative-Optative). Prefixes
carry primary stress (1.6, 3.4).
на- -_x The negative prefix na- precedes any other prefixes: нй-ме-гуям
‘ I won’t say’, на-омад ‘she didn’t come’, на-
ме-би-ёрем « ji 	won’t bring (it)’ (for the role of bi-
here, see under (2) below). Na- may be prefixed to any tense and
mood (see individual paradigms, 3.6-33), including the Passive
auxiliary sudan, the Imperative, the Infinitive, and participles. It is
nearly always written as part of the verb in both Cyrillic and
Perso-Arabic scripts, even before the stem-initial alif of istodan-.
d". .. .1 ‘it did not stop’ (na-istod, not *noyistod).
Before a stem beginning with /о/ (о I) or /а/ (a I), na- is often
buffered by /у/ in speech (as in SP), but this is not usually represented
in Cyrillic, and in Perso-Arabic (with _j_) only where the minimal
Stem I forms of omadan or ovardan would make for ambiguity:
нао (наё) LxS /пауо/ ‘don’t come!’ (sg.); наоед х-x-jLxS \j_c^ls
/nayc^ed/ (pl.); наоред j-jjL-cS \a->jLS ‘don’t bring’. Before alif
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standing for a short vowel (i.e., followed by a regular consonant),
it may either take the buffer у or be written separately, with terminal
h\ наарзанда	‘worthless’; if у is
supplied, the now redundant alif is dropped (cf. also наафтод
alTi j'i \jLkiL ‘it did not fall’).
Na may be separated from the verb to emphasize the subject:
на кар кас медонад alia	‘not everyone knows’
(see 4.2,4.12).
An archaic prohibitive (i.e., negative Imperative/ optative) prefix,
мй- may be found in frozen forms and occasionally in poetry:
макун! ‘do (it) not!’, бар магард! !jj n ‘do not
return!’, мабод jL_o ‘may it not be’.
ме-	Derived from Middle and Early New Persian hame-
(which may still be seen in poetry), this prefix has an imperfective
value. When attached to Stem I, it forms the present-future
indicative: мё-рав-ам f‘I go, am going, will go’. Attached
to Stem II, it forms the past imperfect, which functions as a narrative
past and habitual past, and as the (counterfactual) Conditional
tense: мё-рафт-ам гй(3.13) ‘I went, used to go, would go,
would have gone’. It may occur in poetry with the Imperative:
гуш ме-дор jlau-o >2 ‘Give ear!’ (i.e., to a lengthy oration).
It may also be prefixed to composite tenses: the Perfect, to
form the Non-Witnessed Durative tense мё-рафта-ам « " '»j
(3.22); to the past subjunctive, forming a Past Progressive Sub-
junctive мё-рафта ботам f-iL	(3.27), and to the Past
Conjectural, to form the Present-Future Conjectural мё-рафта-
гистам j>.~ a (and its short form; 3.32).
Me- is written as one with the verb in Cyrillic; it may be joined
to the verb in Perso-Arabic, but is mostly written separately (esp.
with longer forms).
би- At earlier stages of the language, bi- had a perfective sense
and application in both stems, as the counterpart of the imperfective
(ha)me-. In current Tajik Persian it occurs only before Stem I, as
follows.
(1) In polite spoken Tajik, it may be prefixed optionally to the
Imperative of common stem-monosyllabic verbs: бй-шинед
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199
j_i'ij Ai । ‘have a seat’, бй-хон(ед) j \ j \jlj ‘read’, 6ri-
хур(ед) (jlj)jj___к. ‘eat’. Before a stem beginning with /Ь/ the
vowel is modified to Zu/: бу-бинед j_ш____j-Zsee’; likewise bu-
bar(ed) ‘take (it) away’ bu-baxsed ‘pardon/ excuse (me)’ (note
that in this last, very common, expression the stress usually falls
on the second (the stem) syllable).
In elevated written style or poetry it is sometimes prefixed to
the Present Subjunctive or Optative: агар бй-гуяд j-SI ‘if
he says...’, бй-рав-ад jj^j ‘let him go’ (see 3.9).
(2) In colloquial variants of two common verbs (омадан/ о(й)-
\(jj___________ol ‘to come’ and овардан/ op—‘to
bring’) it has always been prefixed to the Imperative to reinforce
the minimal forms o- and or-; hence it became incorporated as an
integral part of Stem I of these verbs in all Aorist-based tenses:
бйё(ед) xjjLxj \l_x_! ‘come!’, мё-би-ёяд	‘he’ll come’,
на-ме-биёрам _________> ‘I’m not bringing (it)’. It is always
written as one word with the verb stem, and before stem-initial /о/
it requires buffering with /у/ (see Fig. 3.9c).
3.6 The Verb‘To Be’ (1)
The forms of the verb будан/ бош—jJj-e t0 be’ exhibit a
mixture of conjugations and some exceptions to the general rules. The
Present Indicative has two series not formed on Stem I, one independent
and the other enclitic, except that they partly share an enclitic form for
3rd singular. Five conjugations of ‘to be’—the enclitic series, a reduced
form of the independent series, the subjunctive on Stem I, and the Past
and Perfect tenses on Stem II, all participate in forming complex tenses
of other verbs (for forms built on Stem 1 бош- -_d>L and Stem II буд-
-jj-j, see 3.7).
Enclitic. The (unstressed) enclitic forms (except -аст	see
below) are added to the last word of the complement: онх;о коргаранд
L^-kT ‘they are workers’, мо дар дарёем	_,j La ‘we
are in the river’. Cyrillic and Perso-Arabic variants of 1st sg. and 3rd
pl. (but not 3rd sg.) include a buffer /у/ (optional) after the back vowels,
/о/ -о, /и/ -у, and /й/ -у: ман Зебоям ^1—j_a ‘I am Zebo’—but
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cf. «Рах,мат, додар», «Артист» намуна-и чунин х,икоя-х,оанд
j* jl *" jjIj <cu-a_a.j"“‘Thanks, Bro-
ther” and “The Performer” are examples of such stories’ (дикоядоянд
would also be acceptable); ондо хдмеша дар орзу-и
сух,батх,о-и нав ба нав-и уянд^1	Lpl
aJ>l jl \j_l_jjl j_s_j ‘they are always eager for his latest words’; in
Cyrillic, -a also changes to -я after final -и: эрониям ‘I am Iranian’.
Fig. 3.6a ‘To Be’: Enclitic Forms (Present Indicative)
Isg. -ам/-ям	t'W	‘I am’
2sg. -й	CS1 \<A-	‘you are’
3sg. (-)аст/-ст	• !  —	‘he, she, it is’
Ipl. -ем		‘we are’
2pl. -ед	aul	‘you are’
3pl. -ЭНД/-ЯНД	J-jl \ *1 J-\J-J—	‘they are’
In Perso-Arabic after final LS- the enclitic is mostly written
separately, starting with alif (as always after final /а/, written with
vocalic -h <u-):	j^l ‘I am Iranian’, S j_jIIj а» хднуз
розйед? ‘are you still content?’; ciuJ <c>LA. хона аст ‘it is a house’,
6 jJl—o мондаем ‘we are tired’. All but the 1st pl. and 2nd sg. and
pl. may be joined to a final	I j_j I эронианд ‘they are Iranians’,
but it is usually preferable to write the enclitics separately: xjl^l j_>l.
Perso-Arabic orthographic variants in	etc., in 2nd singular
and 1st and 2nd plural, follow rules given for personal inflections
(3.4).
In Cyrillic, the 3rd person sg. аст, though an enclitic (without
stress), is usually written separately when functioning as the copula,
‘A is B’: e.g., у дар хона аст OlA _>j jl ‘he is at home’. Only
as part of a complex tense is it written as one with the phrase: омадааст
e>j_oT‘he has come’.
In both orthographies, the initial vowel of 3rd sg. ast may be elided
after a final vowel other than /а/ -a ин чист? -Хдвлйст o-jI
j Ij—a. -	‘what is this? —It is a house’, у кучбст? jl
Sa Ц.1 > C ‘where is he?’, хамин орзуст j j j! Q; - ‘it is this
very desire’, надари уст о— jl jXj ‘it is his father’; note that the
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201
vowel of the final syllable of the nominal continues to bear the stress
when elided with the unstressed enclitic ast. However, when elision
involves the Specific enclitic -e or the Relative connective -e (see
4.42), the amalgamation of two unstressed enclitics remains unstressed:
куки баландест	.> \c_u^l &jX ‘it is a high mountain’;
доест, ки онро намешиносам . „I Л. I_s^i I<Х cj^-J^LXit’s
a place that I don’t know’. This elision is in most cases literary in
style; everyday speech and writing prefer, e.g., камин кавлй аст
Ц.1	‘this is the house’, вай кудо аст? Seu-uJ L=X
‘where is he?’.
The enclitic series of ‘to be’ follows the past participle of other
verbs as an auxiliary verb to form the Perfect tense: рафтаам fl <d_ij
‘I have gone’, etc. (3.15) and the Non-Witnessed Durative: мерафта-ам
fl <LLaj ‘I’m supposed to be going’ (3.22).
Hg. 3.6b‘To Be’: Independent Forms (Present Indicative)
Isg. кастам f ‘I am’
2sg кастй ц'и.,» ‘you are’
3sg. каст/аст
‘there is/ he, she, it is’
Ipl. кастем f a ‘we are’
2pl. кастед a> ‘you are
3pl. кастанд ‘they are;
there are’
Independent In principle, the independent forms (stressed on the
initial syllable) are those of the existential verb ‘to be’: кастам, яъне
вудуд дорам f jIj jj a.j	‘I am, that is, I exist’ (lit.
‘have existence’; cf. 3.8); котиб каст? <_Xl£ ‘is the secretary
in/ there/ available?’ (more politely: даноб-и котиб кастанд? <_>(_ц.
<? с, „ а> u_xLX; cf. 3.4. Despite the English idioms, the focus here is
on the person’s existence, for practical purposes, not on his location).
Nevertheless, these forms are also used as copulas in equational
and locative sentences, parallel to the enclitic series: кануз розй кастам
P"... a ^j-ubl j jj-Xa ‘I am still content’, онко кудо кастанд? ‘where
are they?’. In this case, the two conjugations are amalgamated in 3rd
singular - only ast is used as a copula (and only hast as the existential
verb): (ман) коргар кастам/ коргар-ам	j—S_,l—S (o-°)
f jLX ‘I am a worker’; вай дар бог аст cn-^l	‘he is in
the garden’. An emphatic or asseverative use, however, requires the
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independent form: вай тодик нест-ку -Ха, хает  < j -J ~
.z-ic.-a < La - Qt..H ‘he’s no Tajik —Yes, he is’.
The existential 3rd singular hast occurs impersonally as the idiom
‘there is/ are’ (things): дар 6of-h ту дарахт хает? c-iAjj ДЬ jj
tci.u* ‘are there (any) trees in your garden?’; илод-аш хает
о ш a ‘there is a solution (to it)’ (cf. 2.30). The plural hastand is
similarly used of persons: баъзе хастанд, ки....<l£ c-~ a
‘there are some who...’.
In the literary language, the interrogative pronouns кй ‘who?’
and чй	‘what?’ may be elided with a reduced form of the
independent series: кистам? SjLl___________£ ‘who am I?’, чистанд
S .rri... j-у ‘what are they?’ (cf. cist ‘what is it?’ above, under Enclitic,
and kist ‘who is it/ he/ she?’, which could equally be interpreted as
elisions with the enclitic -ast).
The same short form of hastam, etc., -стам « ~	, is suffixed to
Past Participle II to form three tenses of the Conjectural mood:
рафтаги-стам «j ‘I suppose I did’, etc. (3.31-33).
Negative. Built with Stem Il-type suffixes on the stem nest-, with
initial stress, this independent form negates both of the present indicative
series of ‘to be’, and either the existential or the copula: дар ин хона
тиреза нест .-L »<jl—i. j_jl jj ‘there are no windows in
this room’; котиб нест(анд)	‘the secretaiy is
not in/ not here’; мо коргар нестем - . ' jL£ La ‘we are not
workers’. This form does not function as an auxiliary.
Fig. 3.6c ‘To Be’: Negative (Present Indicative)
Isg. нестам	‘I am not’
2sg. нести	‘you are not’
3sg. не ст	‘he, she, it is not' there is/ are no —’
Ipl. нестем * 	‘we are not’
2р1. нестед	‘you are not’
Зр1. нестанд г."..- .-.	‘they are not; he, she is not; there are no -’
A colloquial variant не commonly replaces 3rd singular нест
cu-lxi__(and in dialect, other persons), particularly in a contrastive
sentence: вай бемор не, тандуруст аст	I ~
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
203
Ц.1 ‘he’s not sick, he’s well’ (cf. the particle не 4.9).
3.7 The Verb ‘To Be’(2)
The Aorist is constructed on the Stem I бош- -(jib (regarded as
being Stem I of будан jj‘to be’), using the regular personal endings
of the ‘present’ series (3.4). The stem has an imperfective or durative
sense: ‘stay, be habitually’, which may be seen in the meanings of
some of its functions.
Fig. 3.7a ‘To Be’: Aorist
Isg. бошам
2sg. бошй
3sg. бошад
Ipl. бошем
2pl. бошед
3pl. бошанд
Present Subjunctive: The Aorist form constitutes the Present Sub-
junctive of ‘to be’. The most frequent use of this tense is in subordinate
clauses, to express an action or state not actually in force except as
contingent on the action or state pertaining in the main clause; e.g.,
мехохдм озод бошам J jl _____________________a. ‘I want to be free’
(4.23).	It may be negated with the (stressed) prefix на- —кушиш
кунед, ки аз камбагалон набошед i j г. < j I	,< _t'>S
.<. Л.1 >' ‘try not to be (one of the) poor’.
The Subjunctive may function independently in a main clause. One
such use is in questions with an affective nuance—asked not simply
for information, but to voice the speaker’s suspicion or presumption:
аэроплан чй хел парранда бошад? J j <	(JJLjjj—±LI
S j_il_> ‘what kind of bird might an “aeroplane” be?’ (cf. the Perfect
Subjunctive, 3.26).
Bosad also serves after an introductory clause to focus a NP or part
of one just mentioned for individual treatment: вай се писар дошт,
калон-ашон бошад, аз хона баромада рафт... j—4—
.-,aJ <c>Li. jl , j_i,L	Л.1л ‘he had three sons; as
for the eldest, he left home...’.
Another independent function is as the Optative mood, i.e. expressing
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a wish or hope for oneself or others (for other verbs, see 3.29): зуд
бошем	—il_> jjj ‘let’s be quick, let’s hurry’; бемалол бошад
j—ilu J9—‘please’ (‘may it be without trouble’); бошад > Al 
‘(so) be it, very well, OK’ (colloquially, /bo§a/). In the negative:
кор-ат(он) набошад jhjlX \ejjLS ‘never mind’ (‘let it not
be your concern’). As a main clause introducing a dependent clause
(verb in the Present Subjunctive) nabos'ad is the Precative, praying for
a negative outcome: набошад ман касал шавам J... <	> Al
?‘I hope I don’t fall ill’ (‘let it not be (that) I...’). The 3rd singular
in particular has several other idioms and stock phrases, e.g.: насиб
бошад, соли дигар боз меравам JU Jl_______________ш < j_iU........\
□—о ‘if I get the chance, I’ll go again next year (‘[if] it be [my]
destiny’); зинда/мурда бошад Б.	о j ‘long live/
down with B.!’ Bosad plays special syntactic roles in Adversative
(4.14,) Concessive (4.34), and Conditional clauses (4.35-38).
Bosam, etc., functions as an auxiliary verb to form three compound
tenses in the Subjunctive: the Perfect, Durative Perfect, and Perfect
Progressive (3.26-28).
An archaic form of the Optative, бод/ бодо bl_> \jL> occurs in
this and other frozen forms: x,ap чи бодо бод jU IjL <_ рь ‘come
what may’, зинда бод jU axij ‘long may [he] live’ (replacing bosad
in similar phrases above); нест бод(о) Г. . (I)jU cm_______mS ‘down
with G.’ (‘may G. be nothing’). In longer phrases the verb may be
elided: Хизру Илёс ёр-атон (бод) (□!_>) jL .dl j j \
‘Khizr-Ilyos [be] your companion’; худо нигохдор (бод) h__________i
(jL) jIj_aL£_j> ‘good-bye’ (God [be your] keeper’). An archaic
Prohibitive, мабодо IJ___□___о ‘may it not be’ (no longer transparent)
functions as a conjunction, ‘lest’ (4.17, 4.38).
Imperative: The Imperative is formed regularly, with the stem alone
for the singular (Stem I plus zero) and the stem plus -ed, the 2nd plural
suffix, for the plural (or formal) form: бош, бошед	‘be’.
The plural or polite Imperative is thus indistinguishable from the 2nd
plural Subjunctive. To distinguish a real plural from a polite singular,
the colloquial language adds the Explicit Plural suffix -етон jl 3_>-
(from the pronominal enclitic; see 2.29): саломат бошетон
jI .______CiL ‘be well, farewell (to all)’. The Prohibitive is formed by
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
205
prefixing на- -_S (see further, 3.29).
There are two interpretations of the Imperative built on this
stem—‘be’, and ‘stay’: зуд бош > jjj ‘be quick/ hurry up’,
монда набошед л л.1	‘take it easy’ (lit. ‘don’t be tired’;
perhaps a Precative, ‘may you not...’); ман равам, шумо бошед j-a
л j л.1; I Л j, jj Til go/ let me go, you stay’; хамон до бошед
л » л,I , I ~.l a a ‘stay right there’; ту дар пеш-и мехмонон бош
<_£(_> jl'-l - d а jj ‘you stay with the guests’. Insofar as injunct-
ions using this form generally advise one to adopt, continue, or
discontinue a state, the imperfect or durative mode is constant, and the
distinction is essentially an effect of translation; cf. саломат бошед
л . л.1 - iTj-oiLuu ‘be well, stay well’.
Present Indicative: As with most verbs, prefixing ме—to the
Aorist generates a Present Indicative: мебошам j.l । _> л ‘I am’, etc.
(3.5). The more usual forms of this tense of ‘to be’ are the enclitic
series (Fig. 3.6a) and the form built on hast- (Fig. 3.6b). However,
mebosam, etc., may substitute for these forms of the copula under
certain conditions, e.g., to lend weight to a statement, or when the verb
is widely separated from its antecedent: салим, ки хама-и шумо
мешиносед, аъзо-и комсомол мебошад I—в—i —о_а	J м.
л л.1 . . a JI а ... а I < ^-l.Arl , ', ...I л, a ‘Salim, whom you all know,
is a member of the Komsomol’.
Nevertheless, in keeping with the stem’s durative meaning, it cannot
have a punctual sense: имруз х,аво гарм аст/*мебошад Ij_a jjj-J
#\ej_uul f j-S ‘the weather is warm today’ (though a habitual
reading is acceptable: дар ин до хдво гарм мебошад Ij-a I	j I jj
j f j—S ‘the weather is [generally] warm here’). Nor does it
have a future sense, like the Present Indicative of most verbs (3.10).
Past Indicative: From Stem II is formed a regular Past Indicative
будам jj-j, etc., ‘I was’, which also acts as an auxiliary to the past
participle of other verbs in forming the Pluperfect indicative (3.16).
This past tense is by nature durative and does not take me--, however,
мебудам	etc., may be used as a counterfactual conditional
(4.36; cf. dostan, 3.8).
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Fig. 3.7b ‘To Be’: Simple Past Tense
Isg. будам		‘I was’
2sg. буди		‘you were’
3sg. буд		‘he, she, it was; there was
Ipl. будем		‘we were’
2pl. будед		‘you were’
3pl. буданд		‘they were; there were’
A regular past participle буда aj‘been’, together with the personal
enclitics of ‘to be’ (3.4), forms the perfect tense: будаам ^»l aj‘I
have been’, etc. (as a Resultative, 3.15; as a Non-Witnessed tense,
3.21). As an auxiliary, this tense helps to form the Perfect and Progressive
Perfect of the Non-Witnessed mode of verbs (3.21-24). The Pluperfect
*буда будам a j jj* * does not occur.
The Definite Future tense: хохам буд	^_«>lj < ‘I will be’, is
formed regularly (3.14). The infinitive будан is much used as a
verbal noun in nominalizations of clauses (see esp. 3.37,4.15-17).
For the participles, see 3.41, 3.43-44, 3.46.
3.8 The Verb‘To Have’
The verb доштан/ дор- -jlj VAJJj'to have, (be) hold(ing), possess’
does not participate as a grammatical auxiliary in tense formation,
though it does accept preverbs and substantives to form lexical Complex
and Composite verbs (5.16,5.18). It has a few peculiarities of conjugation
in its basic form and meaning.
Since it expresses intrinsically a durative and incomplete state (‘being
in possession of’), dostan does not take the prefix ме—on tenses
formed from either stem. Thus the present tense is дор-ам pjlj ‘1
have’, etc. (identical with the Aorist); the past tense (whether simple or
imperfect) isflonrr-aM x" ‘I had’, etc.: мо парируз пул доштем,
холо дигар пул надерем	~ Alj Jj_> La
ijlxl ‘the day before yesterday we had money; now we no longer
have money’.
Exceptionally, in a counterfactual conditional sentence, the Imper-
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
207
feet/ Conditional tense may take me- in either or both clauses: arap
зудтар ме-рафтед, хамин фурсат-ро на-ме-доштед j j—SI
I	tj-xa a j Ci ajLro ‘if you had gone earlier, you
wouldn’t have had this opportunity’; хукуц-и намояндагй ме-
доштам, таклифхо-и амалй пешниход ме-кардам qj °	-»
jLpui-Aj о I а с, ^La »	^.Ij-x-a L<G‘had I the
rights of a representative, I would offer/ have offered practical
suggestions’ (here, in the absence of the conjunction arap j-Sl ‘if’, the
usual sign of the conditional, the addition of me- immediately signals a
conditional).
Dostan does not take the prefix би- -4_i, and since the Aorist
dor-ат, etc., is preempted for the Indicative, for the Present Subjunctive
the composite form дошта бошам 4' is used (equivalent to
the Past Subjunctive of other verbs): бояд ягон рафик; дошта бошед
л ।	4_s_.ilj jt) . аэ jLS-j jjL ‘you have to have some companion’.
The Imperative, however, uses the regular Stem I forms: шарм доред!
! j-jjIj ‘shame on you!’ (‘have shame’).
These irregularities apply only to the simple verb in its original
sense of ‘to have’, and to VPs such as ном доштан	‘to be
called’ (‘have the name’) or фард доштан j-S______ilj Jj___a ‘to differ’
(‘have difference’), in which the verb still bears its literal meaning:
вай дар он вадт Юсупов ном дошт <_s I 5^^ eJaj jf jj
л.И ‘at that time he was called Yusupov’, чй фард дорад? 4_a.
S jjh Jj-s ‘what difference does it make?’. When dostan is part of a
complex or compound idiom such that the literal meaning is lost in the
metaphor, it takes me- like any ordinary verb: уро дуст ме-дорам
jlj^ .?	Ijjl ‘I love her’, хук нигох ме-доштанд j i.
у,-, Л.1,! «	‘they used to keep pigs’; and it uses the simple present
subjunctive: бояд ин-ро хам бардорем p_jjljj-j	I j J.J j_jL ‘we
must remove this as well’.
Colloquially, the 3rd person singular may be used impersonally to
express ‘there is/ is not’: дар хона нигохубин мекардагй одам
хам на-дорад jjljJi	j j j	jj‘there isn’t
even anyone at home to look after (them)’. (This idiom is not as
common in Tajik as in SP. For the participle, see 3.44, 3.46.)
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CONJUGATIONS: SIMPLE
3.9	Tenses from the Aorist
The Aorist form (i.e., that of Stem I without prefix) as illustrated for
будан/ бош- -_4>L> (Fig. 3.7a) is standard for all other verbs.
The Aorist form itself constitutes the Present Subjunctive (for unreal
actions in certain dependent clauses: 3.25, 4.20-23), and the Optative
and Precative (all persons); in occasional combination with the prefix
би- -<_> (3.5), it also forms the Imperative in the 2nd person. In certain
clauses it may constitute a tense of general validity (see 4.32, Manner
and Comparison).
The verbs зистан/ зи- j \(yuu_j5 ‘to live’ (3.9a) and гиристан
/гиря- --jj-S \jt ‘to weep’ (3.9b) have unusual forms of Stem
I. That of zistan ends in a vowel; apart from the change from -a to -я
in three persons of the paradigm in Cyrillic (underlined), the orthography
is regular (cf. omadan, Fig. 3.10b).
The regular Imperatives would be зи зиед j_________зиетон
jLs aaj j .jjLkjj j ‘live!’. Although the former two are used in earlier
literature, they have been replaced in the modern language (as also the
Optative forms, and in most contexts the verb in general) by appropriate
forms of the compound derivatives зинда будан/ бош- axl j
-_4>L (lit. ‘be alive’) and зиндагй кардан	(lit. ‘to do
life’): зинда бош(ед) 4,l_> X^iL aaSj ‘live (long), bravo!’, зинда
бош- ад j_4.U ajjj ‘long live/ viva —!’ (also зинда бод jL aj2>j,
using the archaic optative of ‘to be’ (3.7); муттафидона зиндагй
кунем	jSJ <i ‘.I ° а" л ‘let us live in harmony’.
Fig. 3.9a Aorist: зистан/зи-ij
Isg. зиям	^5	Ipl.	зием
2sg. зий	2pl.	зиед
3sg. ЗИЯД	Ajj	3pl.	ЗИЯНД	jA-jJ
Stem I of giristan ends (uniquely) in consonantal /у/; technically the
form is /giry/ гирй—-jj—S., but this does not exist as a word and is
usually cited, in Cyrillic at least, as гиря (earlier written гирья), the
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
209
same as the activity noun. The Aorist paradigm is as follows.
Fig. 3.9b Aorist: гиристан/гиря-	. ...^£
Isg.	гирям	Ipl.	гирйем
2sg.	гирйй	2pl.	гирйед
3sg.	гиряд	3pl.	гирянд
Finite forms of giristan have been largely replaced by its composite
derivative гиря кардан jaj_£ <Ljj_S ‘to weep’, which generally pro-
vides the Imperative and Precative (except in a more literary style):
гиря накун(ед) i j 'X ~i	‘don’t cry’, зор-зор би-гирянд/
гиря кунанд	\а_Ь_Д_> jlj jlj ‘may they weep bitterly!’.
The verbs додан Jala ‘to give’ and них,одан ‘to put, place’ have
two forms of Stem I (discernible only in Cyrillic): in all tense forms
but one, the stem vowel is /i/: дих,ед a_____>_ла ‘give’, 2pl. Imperative;
ме-них,ам ‘I place’, etc. However, before the zero ending of
the Imperative singular, the stem vowel is raised to /е/: (би)дех, \&a
6j_i ‘give’, (би)нех, \<i_L ‘put’ (see 1.4, Lowering). For other
anomalies of Aorist-based tenses, see under the Present Indicative (3.10)
and Subjunctive (3.25).
3.10	Present Indicative: Forms
The (stressed) prefix ме- is added to the Aorist, comprising Stem
I with the “present” series of personal endings. Fig. 3.10a illustrates
the standard orthography, using the irregular verb (and common lexical
auxiliary) кардан/ кун- \ja‘to do, make’.
Fig. 3.10a	Present Indicative: кардан/ кун- \jajS‘I do, am doing’
Sg- 1. ме кунам 2. мекунй 3. мекунад	Pl.	Pl.	Sg. мекунем	>	'»<	. \ мекунед	. V мекунанд c- 'X	aSk	.Г
The negative is prefixed before me-, and usually assumes primary
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stress: на-ме-равам	‘I am not going’, etc.
The verb рафтан/ рав—j j\	jhas the regular Present Indica-
tive меравам	etc.; in colloquial and dialect pronunciation
this may be shortened to meram, etc., by a regular elision of -av-, and
with variants in 3rd sg. such as merawa, meruwat, mera. The Aorist
равам ravam, and other Aorist-based forms, are not so affected.
Fig. 3.10b illustrates the alternative orthographies for verb stems
ending in a vowel (or in -й LS- after a vowel), as in the verb омадан/
о(й)—(_j)T \jj____ol 'to come’ (cf. the same rules of suffix variation
exemplified using гуфтан/ гу(й)—\u ‘ ‘to say’, 3.4). The
change affects only 1st sg. and 3rd sg. and pl. in the Cyrillic script (as
underlined). In Perso-Arabic, all persons are affected: in the traditional
orthography, personal suffixes starting with a mid or high vowel (2 sg.
/meo-i/, 1st pl. Zme-o-em/ and 2nd pl. /me-o-ed/) are buffered with
hamza ₽, reflecting the careful pronunciation of this glide with a glottal
stop; the other personal suffixes, beginning with a low vowel
(corresponding to the persons affected in Cyrillic, and for the same
reason), are buffered with у reflecting the actual pronunciation of
the glide as /me-o-yam/, /me-o-yad/, /те-o-yand/. In the alternate Perso-
Arabic orthography (that of modern SP), is used as the buffer in all
persons; since this orthography is adopted here, the variant with hamza
will not be shown in paradigms after this.
Rg. 3.10b	Present Indicative: омадан/ о(й)—(_i)T \	J-aT
Sg.	Pl.	Pl.	Sg.	
1. меоям	меоем	^Ти	_o
2. меой	меоед j-aLT-Xj-a-jTjj-o	_o Л
3. меояд	меоянд	jJuT , 4-0	a_iT,,	_o .T
—		 — —	
The few regular verbs that follow this paradigm include хоидан/ хой-
-_iLA\ j > , ,1 < ‘to chew’; about twenty irregular verbs with Stem I in
-о(й)- —(—□)!, -у(й)- and -у(й)- are affected (cf. Figs. 3.3a-c).
In colloquial usage, omadan has an alternative Stem I биё—
incorporating the prefix bi- (3.5), which conjugates as shown in Fig.
3.10c. There are no departures from the orthography of Stem I -o T'-
other than the realization of Cyrillic -o- as -ё- and the similar buffering
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
211
with in Perso-Arabic after the erstwhile prefix.
Rg. 3.10c Present Indicative, omadan: Variants_________________
Isg. мебиёям jb-jLxjjj-o Ipl. мебиёем p  .1 »<u>
2sg. мебиёй	2pl. мебиёед
3sg. мебиёяд xaLa-ij-j-o 3pl. мебиёянд
The Explicit plural form (3.4) 18биёетон (jl~, .“.I >,) jl~.. .1 ,,
The prefix bi- may similarly be incorporated in Stem I of овардан/
op- -jT ‘to bring’: об биёр(ед) (x^jl—‘bring water’,
намебиёранд aS jU_> ‘they won’t bring (it)’.
Three preverbs (see 5.16), which as a class normally precede the
finite verb separated from it and its prefixes, are likewise incorporated
into Stem I of omadan and causative partner ovardan as lexical parts
of the Complex verb. These are bar ‘on, up, over’, as in намебарояд
ajTj-ijj^-S'will not come out’; dar ‘in’, as in медарорам
‘I’ll bring [it] in’; and furti. ‘down’, the final syllable of which is
elided, as in мефуроям p_Jj____‘I’m coming down/ getting off’
(variant, mefaroyam). A fourth formative, gun ‘gathering, collection’,
may optionally combine with dostan! dor- ‘to have’, giving either
мегундорад jjljj-c or рун медорад j jIj	‘he gathers’.
In all other cases in Complex and Composite verbs, the verbal
prefixes {bi-, na-, and me-) are joined to the verb stem; any preverbs or
nominal compounding elements precede them.
3.11	Present Indicative: Functions
The Present Indicative expresses an action or state in progress at the
time of speech; one that habitually or repeatedly or invariably happens;
or one that is due to take place in the foreseeable future. Thus, e.g.,
ман хона меравам	<_Ll_i may mean ‘I’m on my way
home’ (at the moment), or ‘I go home’ (every evening, after work), or
‘I’m going home’ (soon), depending on the context. If the listener is
unaware of the context, adverbial cues may clarify the time reference.
Habitual: x;ap руз cap-и вак,т меояд	ел!j	jjj ‘he
comes on time every day’.
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Future: пагох; дар Душанбе мемонем \1	. 4 •. л.jj jj
‘tomorrow we’re staying/we’ll be staying in Dushanbe’.
General validity: бах;ор баъд аз замистон меояд jl j________»_> jl__$_>
xjf jj-o jl ~ n j ‘spring comes after winter’. This includes com-
mentary and instruction: асп-и худро ба пеш медавонад...........I
jJl jJjj-o	«-j I jJjA ‘he urges his horse into the lead’, аввал
об-ро дар дег ме-резонед а________j-Llj-jj u#-» jJ Ij^l Jjl
‘first you pour the water into the pot’.
Aspects of general validity may also be expressed by the Aorist
(3.9; see 4.32, Manners and Comparison) or the Non-Witnessed
Durative (3.22).
When it is necessary to emphasize either progressivity or futurity, this
may be done independently of adverbial cues by using either the Present
Progressive tense (3.18) or the Definite Future tense (3.14). There is
no dedicated habitual present tense; consequently the primary reading
of the Present Indicative in the absence of overt cues will be as habitual:
мегуянд, ки.......‘they say that...’.
As a “historical present,” this tense may also be used to narrate past or
fictional events. Adverbial cues here may refer to past time: динаруз
бародарам ба ман телефон карда мегуяд ки... jjj
...4_£	___о 6jj_£	j-a-j f ‘yesterday my brother
phones me, he says...’ (a Serial verb coordinate; see 4.19).
In narrating past events, one uses this tense to report an action or state
perceived at the time: шунидам ки ягон кас меояд _i'i Л,
j‘I heard someone coming’ (‘...that someone is
coming’); вай медонист, ки зани худ дар хонааст ва механдад
л.с.А / j <c>La. jj jj_i. j j 4_S .cl. c.‘he knew
that his wife was at home (and was) laughing’ (‘...is at home and
is laughing’; this is the converse of the use of the quotative past in
English. See under Concomitant complements, 4.16).
3.12	Simple Past
The Simple Past of the Indicative (also called the preteritfe]) is formed
on Stem II with the past series of endings. There are no orthographic
variants. If the verb stem begins with a vowel (a or o), the negative
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
213
form may be pronounced with a -y- glide between prefix and stem, as
/nayomadam/; however, this is not reflected in Cyrillic or in current
Perso-Arabic orthography (unlike SP).
An archaic form of 3rd sg. in -o may be found in poetry: (би)гуфто
IЛ i । \L11£ ‘quoth he/ she’.
Dialect variations include alteration of quality in unstressed vowels
and suppression of final dental consonants: 2pl. karde, 3pl. kardan,
kdrden (see also 3.15).
Rg. 3.12 Simple Past: kardam ‘I did, made’
Sg.	Pl.	Pl.	Sg-
1. кардам	кардем		
2. кардй	кардед		
3. кард	карданд		.r
This tense is perfective in aspect, and states that an action was performed
and (by implication) completed in the past. It is the usual tense of
narrative: мо хеле дур пиёда рафтем ва наздик-и нимшаб
истирохдт кардем <_,£ л A j j ~ aj 6jL-a-j jjj O1 j A La
j~i^.l‘we walked a long way and rested towards midnight’.
Even if the action was by nature durative or repeated, the Simple
Past is generally used if a time limit is mentioned: ду сол он чо
хондам jS. LaJil JL*! jj ‘I studied there [for] two years’ (but cf.
3.13).
It may also designate an action that at the moment of speech is still
in the future, but will necessarily have been completed by the time the
action proposed in the main clause is undertaken: хаво ки хунук
шуд, либоси гарм мепушем	L_J < а_i	I j_a
>  ‘when the weather turns [lit. ‘turned’] cold, we will put on
warm clothes’.
Some verbs are semantically durative rather than punctual; if the
action began some time ago but is accomplished only in present time,
the Simple Past may compete with the Perfect (resultative, 3.15): аз
ин воке а хеле вахт гузашт/ гузаштааст cLsj <-Laf j <>jI jl
,->^.1 < ~ ЛЛ <	. ,7..\ < ‘a long time has passed since this event/ this
happened long ago’.
Some verbs may have a punctual, an inceptive, or a durative
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CHAPTER THREE
interpretation, depending on the context and/ or the adverbial cues:
ман зуд хобидам jA J-a means ‘I quickly lay down/ went
to bed early/ soon went to sleep’; ман хашт соат хобидам j-»
otLj с.,  n ft means ‘I slept (for) eight hours’. Nevertheless,
the Simple Past in all cases expresses the accomplishment of the
particular action or change of state envisaged in the idiom.
Speech acts, etc. This is also the tense used to express an action
accomplished by the very act of stating it (a performative): туро
бахшидам л. \ .. I‘I forgive you’. It is also used to express an
action undertaken in immediate response to a request and the like, and
thus ideally accomplished: x.a, натарс! ман рафтам
> ". aj ‘Don’t be afraid, I’m on my way’ (lit. ‘I went’, though the
speaker is just beginning to move).
By the same logic, verbs of present perception and intellection
often use the Simple Past, where the English translation prefers the
Present: туро дидам! I‘I see [‘saw’] you!’, фахмидам
a ‘I understand’ (lit., ‘understood’).
The Simple Past of verbs expressing a change of state is often used
where English prefers to report the state being experienced, and thus
uses the Present: ман дар тааддиб мондам	«" jj ‘I
am surprised’ (lit., ‘was [just now] left in surprise’ (cf. 3.16,4.24).
3.13 Imperfect
The prefix ме—is added to the Simple Past. The Imperfect form
provides two different tenses with a related range of uses.
Rg . 3.13 Imperfect: mekardam
‘I was doing, used to do; would do’
Sg.	Pl.	Pl.	Sg.
1. мекардам	мекардем	ст®	
2. мекардй	мекардед		
3. мекард	мекарданд	^£^-0	г
(1) Durative Past An Indicative past tense that describes the progress
of an action in the past, without stating that it was completed. Thus it
may refer to a habitual or repeated action, even if performed punctually
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
215
at intervals: вадте ман дар донишгох будам, бисёр мактуб ме-
навиштам
‘when I was at university, I wrote a lot of letters’. Adverbials that
typically accompany the Imperfect as a Durative Past are roxo LaL_S
‘sometimes’, гох... гох ...б1£ ‘at one time... at another...’, мурат-
таб ‘regularly’, торафт jL ‘gradually, progressively’.
If the focus is on the duration, it may be used in preference to the
Simple Past even when a time adverbial implies that the action eventually
stopped: ду сол-и paco интизор ме-кард jl I___________uj JI___ш
.д ‘she waited two whole years/ a full two years’ (cf. ду сол он
до хондам	I -ч ~J Jl—jj‘I studied there for two years’ in
3.12)	. Similarly: дар он зиёфат ошро ман ме-пухтам, ва дигар
хизматхоро хам ман ме-кардам j-o lj_________if .-.AI	. jl jj
j>_A I jLa<zj-oiA j ~ ‘at that dinner I (was
the one who) cooked the pilav and did the other chores as well’. Here,
emphasis is placed on the sustained activity; it would be preferable to
substitute Simple Past forms (puxtam... kardam) if one wished to stress
the accomplishment instead.
The Imperfect may be used for the durative past even of stative
verbs (3.17): дар кабинаи автомолбили бор-каш ду кас ме-нишаст
jj jjkS jL> J_xjL_oL jl’G j । S jj ‘in the cab of the
truck sat two people’ (note the singular verb, agreeing with a not yet
individuated subject); menisast is here equivalent to нишаста буд
<i~ .„л; ‘were seated’. Similarly, вай ним соат он до ме-истод
jl. "1 jl	cu-cLlu (_5j‘he stood there for half an hour’ is
synonymous with ...istoda bud ‘was standing’.
(2) Counterfactual Conditional: An irrealis tense used in both clauses
of a conditional sentence expressing an unfulfilled condition: arap
ме-омад, мо хурсанд ме-шудем.. ><.*• _<« v....jA Lo
‘if he came, we would be happy/ if he had come, we would have been
happy’ (4.36).
The same tense follows forms of the modal auxiliary бояд j_,L
‘must’ in conditional mode (i.e., expressing an unfulfilled obligation):
бояд дар рузхои такдирсоз... ба захмати шахсиятхои фархангй
бахо ме-додем <-.	3 * ^ ।	...j	° * ^^La ),s _>
л L$_i ...^Дааj_a ^САс^даЧ ui‘we ought to have appreciated
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the efforts of (our) cultural personalities... in those fateful days’ (4.20).
It also provides an Optative or volitional tense, likewise in the
context of an unrealized condition: кошки наме-рафтанд < 5L.7.I_____$
'	would that I if only they had not left!’ (4.38). In these
related functions, the Imperfect forms of the verbs budan ‘to be’ (3.7)
and dostan ‘to have’ (3.8) may also acquire the prefix me-, which they
dispense with in the Past Durative function.
CONJUGATIONS: COMPOUND
3.14 Definite Future
The Definite Future (also called the periphrastic, or literary, or absolute,
future) is formed by preposing an auxiliary verb, the Aorist of хостан/
хох;- -_л1 jS. \j"	to the Short Infinitive of the main verb (Stem
II + zero).
Fig. 3.14 Dehnjte Future: xoham kard ‘I shall do’
Sg.	Pl.		Р1.	Sg-
1. хохдм кард	хохем кард			
2. хохй кард	хохед кард			Л
3. хохад кард	хоханд кард		1 jA	
The negative prefix is attached to the auxiliary: на-хохам омад
j___oT л mlj k ‘I shall not come’, etc. This word order is fixed, and
nothing may intervene between the auxiliary and the main verb;
consequently, in a Complex or Composite verb the non-verbal element
must precede the auxiliary: бар нахоханд гашт си»	ju
‘they will not return’, хукумат ин конунро риоя хохад кард
<t_.Lc j I j	o-о‘the government will uphold
this law’.
The tense is little used in everyday speech and writing, for which
the Present Indicative is preferred. It is regarded as literary in style,
and generally has a rhetorical or asseverative nuance, as in the examples
above. However, in the absence or imprecision of adverbial cues, it
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
217
may serve to specify a future reference by avoiding an ambiguous
Present Indicative: х;еч(вак;т) ба он до нахохдм рафт (.-
cui j	LaJiL.1‘1 will never go there’ {...nameravam could mean
‘I never (do) go there’).
There is a colloquial stratagem to designate an intended future act.
A participle, formed from the Infinitive by suffixing -й may be
used predicatively in combination with tenses of ‘to be’ and шудан/
шав—j—i \ jj—4, ‘to become’: ман рафтани-ам/ хастам j_o
ь	flj ‘I’m going, I’m off’; рафтанй шудем
jb_jj_ai‘we were all set to go’. (This construction is more versatile and
more extensively used than in SP: see 3.42.)
3.15 Perfect Indicative
The Perfect tense (also called the present perfect) is formed from the
past participle of the desired verb plus the enclitic present of ‘to be’
(Fig. 3.6a). The past participle of a verb (Past Participle I) is formed by
suffixing -a <t_- to Stem II (3.43).
Rg. 3.15	Perfect Indicative: kardaam ‘I have done’	
Sg-	Pl.	Pl-	Sg.
1. кардаам	кардаем	.A
2. кардай	кардаед	j—»!	.Y
3. кардааст	кардаанд	.T
In Cyrillic all the persons are written as one word; in Perso-Arabic, the
enclitics each start a new word with alif. Note that primary stress falls
on the last syllable of the past participle (karda-am, etc.). The negative
is formed by prefixing (stressed) на- наомадаам ъ j_aLl ‘I have
not come’, etc. There are no orthographic variants. As in the Simple
Past (see 3.12), if the verb stem begins with a vowel (a or o), the
negative form may be pronounced with a -y- glide between prefix and
stem, as /nayomada-am/; however, this is not reflected in Cyrillic or
current Perso-Arabic orthography (unlike SP).
Dialect variants involve some assimilation of the final (stressed)
vowel of the participle with the initial vowel of the auxiliaiy. In the
persons affected, the stress pattern tends to distinguish between this
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and the similar person of the Simple Past: e.g., 3sg. raftas ‘he has
gone’; Isg. and pl. kardem (cf. Simple Past kardem)', 2sg. kardi (cf.
Simple Past kardi)', 2pl. karde (cf. Simple Past karde)\ 3sg. karday,
3pl. karden (cf. Simple Past kardan).
In dialect and colloquial usage, the usual past participle may be
replaced by Past Participle II (кардагй _>£, рафтагй <"» see
3.44), and the personal ending omitted: акнун ман чала-чулла
саводнок шудагй, ман х,ам камтар доно шудагй -гуфт
।- I fl S—	—dj Ljij 3—1—A (3-^ di	... d I ",—d f у
‘“now I’ve learned to read and write somewhat, I’ve gotten a bit more
savvy,” he said’ (for sudagt-am = suda-am. Here kamtar is not com-
parative ‘less’, but absolute ‘a little’; see 2.47).
In this example the mode is evidently the unmarked Indicative
(first-person experience), not the Non-Witnessed Indicative, so the
Perfect is exercising its primary function as a resultative (see next),
nor does the ending -gT denote a conjectural (cf. 3.31). In other persons
these distinctions may not be so obvious, but in fact the sense of
[kardagi] as a short form of the Perfect tense is invariably that of a
resultative: шарикх,о-ямон рафт-и кор-ро гирифта мондагй
, <О_ЬI j jLS j <jl_a-jl.^X_i->-j)‘our mates have gotten the
hang of the work’ (i.e., mondagi-and, a Conjunct verb form that is
explicitly resultative; see 5.20).
The Perfect has two principal functions.
(1) Resultative aspect: In its “traditional” function as a resultative, the
Tajik Perfect designates an action viewed as having been completed,
and its consequences still in force, at the time of speaking: он чиз ба
модарам аз модаркалонам мерос монда-аст jl yLa jl
! bxiLa eJj j n yilA jjLa ‘that object has been handed down to
my mother from my grandmother’. The negative correspondingly denies
that the act took place at any time: ин касро хеч бак,т надида-ам
сиЗз gift I йн' "I have never seen this person’.
Often the Tajik Perfect corresponds in reference, and in translation,
to the (British) English Perfect, but the scope of each does not always
match: the Tajik sentence, for instance, may include a specific time
adverbial: ман дируз ба рафикам хат навиштаам Jjj-jj j-o
<i ", л,у L < -у у ‘yesterday I wrote [‘have written’] to my friend’;
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
219
онхо имруз ба хона-и наве, ки дар се мох-и охир сохта-анд,
мекучанд <xil «OALlu _>_^.Т ь1_а 4-*^ jj <Х i '!	 jjj-ol L$_5l
jj-o ‘today they are moving to a new house that they have built
in the last three months.’
For stative verbs, see 3.17.
(2) Non-Witnessed Perfect. The Perfect has an additional function
which will be more fully illustrated under the rubric of the Non-Witnessed
mode (3.21). It joins a group of tenses, together with three others
dedicated to the purpose, designating an occurrence known to the speaker
not by direct observation but from collateral sources —hearsay or
logical inference; or a fact unexpectedly discovered or newly appreciated
as relevant. In this mode, the Perfect of most verbs refers of either past
or present time; that of ‘to be’ and ‘to have’ generally refers to present
time: мегуянд, ки вай одами мехрубон буда-аст	~
с.» ^1 ojj-i jLij—$_a ‘they say that he’s a kind person’ (i.e., he is
now, not ‘has been’ or ‘was’).
3.16 Pluperfect Indicative
The Pluperfect, or distant past (also called the past perfect) is formed
from the Past Participle plus the Simple Past of будан jjj-j ‘to be’
(3.7). Stress is not very noticeable, other than a higher pitch on the last
syllable of the participle. The negative is formed as for the Perfect:
нахурда будам jj_________________=>_j ‘I had not eaten’, etc., with stronger
stress on the initial na-.
Fig. 3.16 Pluperfect Indicative: karda budam ‘I had done’
Sg.	Pl.
Isg. карда будам	карда	будем
2sg. карда буди	карда	будед
3sg. карда буд	карда	буданд
Pl.	Sg.

. Y
There is a Northern dialect form substituting Past Participle II for I:
кардагй будам	j__£, e.g., ман, ки хисоби абдадро ёд
гирифтагй будам, ин гапхои падарамро ба зудй ва осонй
фахмидам	<_S. з-Л	jL I	... -> <Х .
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j n о a ^LujT j jj_i I j (* j-l? ‘I, who had learned how to count
using the letters of the alphabet, quickly and easily understood what
my father was saying’ (see also the last paragraph below).
The Pluperfect is primarily a retrospective, not a narrative, tense—the
past counterpart of the Present Perfect. It refers to an action or state in
the past already completed by a certain time in the past, often that of
the start of another past action immediately preceding the present
situation: китоб-е-ро, ки ба ман дода будед, хонда тамом кардам
jjjj_j 6jlj j-o-j <i_S lJu_il ~ •si (have) finished
reading the book that you gave me’ (‘...had given me’). The more
remote of two past occurrences is relegated to the Pluperfect even by
different speakers in the same context: ман дируз Оиша-ро дидам.
Ту чй? -Ман се руз пеш дида будам	^.iLc ёя»
jjj 4	S4_a. jLl ‘I saw Oisha yesterday. How
about you? —I saw her three days ago’ (‘...had seen [her]’); мо х,ам
соли гузашта ба он до рафта будем I >~jL-j4 т Л. j JL^ 1_а
j_i 4 ~ aj ‘we went there too, last year’ (‘..had gone’, in response
to, say, man raftam... ‘I went...’).
The more recent past action may be elided, to be inferred from the
context: бори аввал ман ба Париж тобистони соли 1985 рафта
будам j-j 4-ljj J Lu (jl~... iL *4 d-° Jj' jk ‘the first
time I went to Paris [was] summer of 1985’ (‘had gone’, implying that
there was a subsequent trip or trips); ба шумо одат карда будем
jj uzjjLc I n Л. j ‘We are used to you’ (lit., ‘we had gotten used
to you’ —which explains our action, or reaction, just completed, though
not mentioned); or the time frame locates the action as definitively
prior to any subsequent discussion: у порсол омада буд JL^jL jl
jj_j 6j_aT ‘he came last year’ (‘...had come’, with the implication that
this year he either returned, or did not).
This tense may also be used to underline the remoteness or historical
significance of an action: дусад сол пеш аз ин бобоёни мо ба ин
до кучида омада буданд I_________о (jULL j-J jl JI—— j—jj
jJjj_> a j_ol л,» I jLi ‘two hundred years ago our forefathers
[had] migrated here’ (...and much has happened since). In these cases
where the Tajik Persian Pluperfect has a broader scope than its English
counterpart, it generally corresponds to SP usage.
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221
The Pluperfect of verbs expressing a change of state is often used
where English prefers to report the state being experienced, and thus
uses the Simple Past: ман монда шуда будам jj_> ьа-Д оДЬ
‘I was tired’ (lit., ‘had [just then] become tired’ (see also 3.12,4.24).
The Pluperfect may also express an unfulfilled past condition in
either clause, or both clauses, of a counterfactual conditional sentence.
In this function (at least in the form using Past Participle II) it may
even add the prefix me--, агар чашм-и Ёдгор-ро андеша-и оянда-и
сиёх, торик на-кардагй мебуд... лаДЛ <Д_>аД) IjjlSaL Д^
...a^-i,, Да ДД uS-jjLi al а a. ‘if Yodgor’s vision had not been
clouded by the prospect of a black future...’ (see 4.36).
3.17	Stative Verbs
Stative verbs are those such as (in English) be, stay, live, have, wear,
which express a state of rest or a continuing situation rather than a
punctual action. Included here are also dynamic-stative verbs, which
may express either an action or a state, depending on tense and context:
in Tajik the main such verbs are истодан/ ист- - ~i... >1 \jal ‘to
stop, stand’, нишастан/ нишин- - ' _i Д ~i \<2j ~	»*> and шиштан/
шин- - \_> -Д \j~> Д Л.‘to sit’, хобидан	‘to lie (down),
sleep’, пушидан ja. j -Д5-1 ‘to put on (clothing), to wear’, ч,ой гир-
ифтан/ гир- -_>-Д \А*А едЦ- ‘to be located’. Though the punctual
tenses (Present, Simple Past) report an action (to stop, sit down, etc.),
the Perfect and Pluperfect tenses of these verbs usually bear the stative
sense. This designates durative time without reference to prior action
or remoteness: present for the Perfect, immediate past for the Pluperfect.
In some cases the durative past sense of the Imperfect may substitute
(3.13). Consider the following pairs of sentences:
(1)	асп дар пеши дарвоза истод al ~i * JI jja <A±^
‘the horse stopped in front of the gate’; асп дар пеши дарвоза
истода буд/ меистод \аaal______5—cu_.l ь JI jjj АтН?
<1" • jl " ‘the horse stood/ was standing in front of the gate’.
(2)	Афандй ба хона даромада ба руи к,олин нишаст ^аД-Ы
Д', j_JLs ба_аТэа <i -.1 k ,‘Afandi came into the room
and sat (down) on the rug’; Афандй дар болохонааш нишаста
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буд/ менишаст	ч т,„Л ‘i ui.l<C1Lk^L1
‘Afandi was sitting/ seated in the upper story of his house’.
(3)	содиба-и хона туппи-ашро пушид lj а -  j~. <c>LA a  -J
a-j-ii‘the mistress of the house put on her cap’; содиба-и хона,
ки туппи-и мудаввари зардузи-ашро то ба сари абрувонаш
фароварда пушида буд /jj—о	*<—S <431—A а  -J
jJLjljj-J Is Ij-AujjJj j ‘the mistress
of the house, who wore/ was wearing her round, embroidered cap
pulled down to the tops of her eyebrows’.
(4)	Ондо дар Афгонистон до гирифтанд La. jl '... ~.l 4 Ы JbJ
G~i j‘they settled (down) in Afghanistan’; Шадри Файзобод
дар Афгонистон ной гирифтааст _,з	___Ь j
cu-uul <_А(зЦ. jl"m,\Li_al ‘the city of Faizabad is (located) in
Afghanistan’.
(5)	у ба руи курпа добид-у ба зудй хоб рафт
cu-s j <_JjA (_gjjJ_> j .LuijA ‘he lay down on the quilt and soon
fell asleep’; марди дезумкаш дид, ки дар як до дезум дамъ
шуда добидааст a. у а Ц. АА _>j <lA jjj	jj_«
j_A a.\ A ‘the woodcutter saw that the firewood had
been gathered together and lay/ was lying in one place’. (The
English “quotative past” disguises in translation the true present
time of xobidaast ‘is lying/ laid’; the inanimate ‘firewood’, inci-
dentally, would not be a possible subject of the Simple Past xobid
‘lay down’.)
Some at least of these structures are actually not examples of the
Perfect/ Pluperfect tense, but of predicative adjectives (the Past
Participles) as complements of appropriate copula forms of the verb
‘to be’. They are not found in the negative; and in Cyrillic the participle
and verbal enclitic are sometimes written separately: хобида аст).
Two common verbs of perception and intellection—донистан/ дон-
-Ah \^т ‘Jj ‘to know’ (facts) and шинохтан/ шинос- \j~ < Iл.
- ...1 'i  » ‘to know’ (people, places)—are also dynamic-static, though
their tense-differential is confined to a contrast of Simple Past and
durative past (Imperfect): тафсилот-ашро медонист I	a~.
...... ’.I > ‘he knew the details (of it)’, погод донист/ фадмид, ки
дусти дуд хиёнат кардааст ALA jjA cj-xujj <A	aUL
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223
о luI ajj_S ‘suddenly he knew/ realized that his friend had betrayed
[him]’; вайро сол\о мешинохтам	LpLo lJt?J ‘I knew
him for years’, динаруз дар куча маро нашинохт _,а	'
сха.1 '12:, j I j_a ‘yesterday in the street he didn’t recognize me’.
These verbs do not have progressive tenses; the Present Indicative
normally has the stative reading, ‘I know’, etc.
Stative verb phrases may also be distinguished from Perfect and
Pluperfect tenses in the passive (3.36, last paragraph). The stative Perfect
and Pluperfect (or predicative participial) forms истода-ам/-будам
-\^I ajl ~ llujI ‘I am/ was standing’, etc., have evolved into formal
progressive tense auxiliaries (see next, 3.18-19).
PROGRESSIVE TENSES
3.18	Present Progressive
Progressivity is an aspect of the verb where the act is described in
progress, at some point before its completion. This is one of the senses
of the Present Indicative (in both present and future time) and the
Imperfect (in past time), but not the only one; dedicated progressive
tenses make it possible to avoid ambiguity if appropriate adverbial
cues are not available. Stative verbs (budan, dostan) and dynamic-stative
verbs (donistan, sinoxtan, nisastan, sistan, xobidan, pusidan, jo(y)
giriftan and istodan itself: see 3.17) do not have progressive tenses.
Two progressive tenses correspond respectively to the Present (‘I
am doing’, etc.) and Past (‘I was doing’); a third corresponds to the
Non-Witnessed Pluperfect (‘he had evidently been doing’; this will be
treated under 3.24).
The Present Progressive tense is formed from the past participle
plus the perfect tense of the auxiliary истодан jal ~i ... J ‘to stand, be
standing’ (also written in Perso-Arabic without^, as 6jLb-ul).
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Rg. 3.18 Present Progressive:
karda istodaam'X am doing’
Isg. карда истодаам 2sg. карда истодай 3sg. карда истодааст	^1	1 *1 « 41 1 1 6jL±j_u_jl t **_ I- * 1  1 6lj 1 11 11 * 1 6
Ipl. карда истодаем 2р1. карда истодаед Зр1. карда истодаанд	J 1 6 J I 1 i U >I 6 Mt j| bJ J-j I	J
Dialect variants (of рафта истодаам м! ".  J «i ". «‘I am going’,
etc.) include, in Northern dialects: Isg. rafsodam, raftosianr, 3sg.
rafsoddy, rafsodas, rafsos\ kardasoday, karsoddy, Central and Southern:
Isg. raftestam.
The tense designates an action in progress at the moment of speech:
бачадо бозй карда истодаанд л-.Н~... .1	I *»<i , ‘the
children are playing’. This usually includes reported speech about past
events, and experiences or perceptions recorded as in progress in the
past: дид, ки хдмшира дар падлуяш хандида истодааст jjj
cj-uJ Т .nJ	jj &j j ,S, n a ‘he saw that (his) sister
was laughing by his side’ (recorded from the viewpoint of the participant
at the time it happened; however, see 3.19).
It may be combined with a serial verb (as here, with raftan in the
sense of progressive change: 5.20,5.21): давлй ва руйдарича... хароб
шуда рафта истодаанд * ~ oj ьд-Л <_>!d	з
jJl "i ..._iI ‘the house, and the porch, are going/ have been going to
rack and ruin’ (note the plural agreement in the verb, for individuated
subjects).
The Present Progressive may sometimes stand for the habitual aspect:
мо дар институт фандо-и гуногун-ро омухта истодаем jj I_______________а
^_jl luijl <	‘i a j ~i < ii'tI *we are learning/
learn various subjects at the institute’ (if the speaker is not at the
moment in class—and even if she is, since she cannot be learning
‘various subjects’ at one moment—this is not a literal use of the
progressive; as in English, the focus is on a limited current experience
within the larger frame of the habitual or iterated past-present-future).
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225
Colloquially, the past participle ofranrraH j". .* ^‘to become, go
on’ may replace istodan, usually with this additional Perfect Progressive
sense: х,амсояи мо дар Душанбе кор карда гаштааст L> Щ... п л
...I «I ~ Л-< jl£ <i ;\ Л.jj jj ‘our neighbor has been working in
Dushanbe (and still is)’.
The Imperative of the Progressive is not used; the negative, though
not frequent, does occur to contradict an assertion (the stressed prefix
na- is added to the main verb): одамон доло нарафта истодаанд
jjl л <1 ~ ... ! * ~ aa. (jL-ajI ‘the people are not going now’; вай
нанавишта истодааст ,-l^J	‘he is not writing’.
This tense has a corresponding Subjunctive (3.28), and participle
(3.45).
3.19	Past Progressive
The tense is formed on the Past Participle of the verb, plus the Pluperfect
of istodan Dialect variants include: 3sg. karsoda bud, rafsoda bud.
This tense designates an action as being in progress in the past:
рузи серкор ва пур аз ташвиш ба охир расида истода буд jjj
jj_> л d ". ...I лл _ ...j j2.L u."i jl j-> j _>LSj-e-“ busy and
anxious day was drawing to an end’; ман аввалин бор буд, ки... ин
гуна одамони зиндадил ва адабиётчи-ро дида истода будам
I	xjjl J Jjftj-ij (jl—Ojl	(j-^l ...<-£ Jj-J jLj (jjJjl (j-a
.1 6 jjj ‘it was the first time I had seen lively and literature-
loving people like this’ (lit., ‘was seeing’; the English quotative past
disguises the time-frame).
Rg. 3.19 Past Progressive: karda istoda budam
‘I was doing/ making’
Isg.	карда истода	будам	f	"l ll
2sg.	карда истода	буди		~ м-ll
3sg.	карда истода	буд		6jl "in ll
Ipl.	карда истода	будем		6 ij 1 t <ll< 1 > 1 6 ij
2pl.	карда истода	будед		A J "... ' । 6 J
3pl. карда истода		буданд		6jl" m_ll 6 J
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Most frequently the Past Progressive occurs in complex sentences (in
either clause) to denote an activity that was in progress at the start of a
second action: Нуралй аспашро ба мех баста истода буд, ки
Ходиумар намоён шуд т ... jl « ~	~	 ...I
(jLLoJi js-c.	j_i ‘Nurali was tethering his horse to the
stake when Hojiumar appeared’ (see ki, 4.39); вадте ман ба хона
омадам, занам хурок-и шом пухта истода буд <i_j ".
jj_> ".	\ <XI jj <^д_оТ <CiLA‘when I got home,
my wire was cooking dinner’. Sometimes the subsequent action may
be elided, though implied by the context: дуруст аст, ки ман ин до
бисьёр чиз ёд гирифта истода будам I J	...I
<L3_ijL 5-10. jl_.j ‘it’s true that I was learning a lot
of things here (—before my studies were interrupted)’.
Where the semantic load of the auxiliary in a composite verb is
negligible (as with the “dummy” kardan-. see 5.18), its past participle
may be deleted: дар куча рафидамро дидам, ки бо духтаре
судбат [карда] истода буд ". L <t_S	_,j
j", [ajj^]	‘In the street I saw my friend (who was)
talking to a girl’.
This same example also appears to contravene the usual sequence
of tenses in a report of a past experience or perception, namely that the
time frame is that of the participant at the time of the event, not of the
narrator at a later point in time (cf. 3.18, second example). In the case
of a relative clause, however, either time frame may be chosen, depending
on the narrative focus (4.42).
3.20	Other Progressive Constructions
Present tenses of istodan! ist- may be used as serial auxiliaries, to
indicate that an action once begun will continue: то омадан-и шумо
ман кор карда меистам ... .1^«	I ~ л, Л L
‘until your arrival/ until you get here, I’ll carry on/ keep on working’
(Present Indicative); шумо рафта истед, ман аз паятон расида
меравам jj-a-a ...j jl .j_.~iЦ1_.1 <". a j I a Л, ‘you get
going/ go on ahead, I’ll follow on/ catch up with you’; ту ин чиздоро
дошта исто, ман хозир меоям	л ~ A-h II j_>l
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
227
j-ubl_s.‘you hold these things, I’ll be right back’ (Imperatives;
the sg. form of istodan is irregular, see 3.29); от гарм туда истад
л ~ <_>! ал—i	jjiiT ‘let the food warm up’ (Aorist as Optative).
Here the time reference extends from the present into the future. Since
the finite forms are still independently tensed verbs, this useful “quasi-
tense” (3.1) belongs technically among the lexicalized adverbials of
the Conjunct verb construction (5.20).
Other tenses of istodan! ist- may be used serially to refine the
nuances of progressivity. Thus the Simple Past characterizes an ongoing
activity that stopped (typically, was interrupted by) a new occurrence:
то омадан-и ман Рахим рузнома хонда истод j j (j_o (ja-ol L
J ~i <..jI aj—4—olsJjj ‘until my arrival, Rahim was reading the
paper’; to cap шудан-и борон мо пахтаро об дода истодем Ь
_>l ajlj <_il I j 4 ~ \L> ^1 jl_i (jj-Д j_uj‘until it started to rain,
we were watering the cotton’ (see further under to L, 4.28).
Sometimes the Imperfect (past durative tense) of istodan is used
with the past participle of a Stative verb, instead of the more usual
Pluperfect (3.17): мухо-и абрувон-аш чашмон-ашро пушонда ме-
истоданд	I j (jksl л. 4,^ (jiJ>ljj_>l
‘the hair of his eyebrows covered/ concealed his eyes’ (‘the hairs...
were-standing-having-covered...’).
Other stative verbs, especially nisastan and sistan ‘to sit’, may be
used serially in several tenses to express progressive activity: китоб
хонда менишинам	‘I’m (‘sitting’) reading’;
мо тамоми пешгох гаи зада шиштем	е>1<Л.	L»
« ,-.л л‘we were f‘sat’] chatting the whole morning’.
NON-WITNESSED MODE
3.21	The Perfect as a Non-Witnessed Form
The compound tense forms described below belong to a category of
the verb which is not modal in the established sense, being rather a
“viewpoint” within the Indicative or common mode. It has also been
called noncommittal, non-evident, evidential, narrative, and auditive.
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The category exists also in Standard Persian, but is more highly
systematized in Tajik.1 Such verbs denote an action or occurrence known
to the speaker not by direct observation but from collateral
sources—hearsay or logical inference (quotative, inferential); or they
acknowledge a situation unexpectedly discovered, or a fact only just
appreciated as relevant (mirative). The indirect nature of the experience
may (or may not) be signaled by an epistemic verb such as шунидан/
шунав- \j,' j'i Л, ‘to hear’ or хабаргирифтан/ -гир- j - <
-j-j-S- \d-k_ij_S ‘to be informed’, or a phrase such as маълум шуд
f o ‘it became known’. Sentences without such cues are often
glossed in English, Russian, etc. using adverbials such as ‘evidently’
or ‘it seems’, though these insertions are sometimes too heavy-handed
for the nuance encoded in the Tajik verb form.
In the nature of things, one is unlikely not to have first-hand
information about one’s own actions (except when reporting, usually
ironically, what others have said about them); hence these tenses occur
less frequently in the 1st person than in the others.
Non-Witnessed Perfect The Perfect Indicative tense, apart from its
role as a resultative (3.15), also functions as a Non-Witnessed past
or present: мегуянд, ки куллиёт-и ин нависанда баромадааст
uu-eul аа_Лj_> а.ьы (jjl	<t_£ j n ‘they say that
this writer’s collected works has appeared/ is out’; саёх;ат-ба
рафта-аст clJ j <j-c.ls.Lj j, ‘he went on a trip (so I hear)’
(quotative; for the postposition -ba, see 2.24); рузи рафтанаш
касал шуда бошй, Душанбе рафта-й [рафта-аст] Jjj
^1 <_j_i j <t >с,jj	aa-i	‘i~i a j ‘if you fell ill on the
day of his departure, then it was Monday that he left’ (inference).
‘Be’ and ‘Have’. The Perfect of the stative verbs budan ‘to be’ and
dostan ‘to have’ always refer to present time, or general truths,
when used in Non-Witnessed contexts. The Non-Witnessed mode
is a more frequent function of the Perfect forms будаам	ajjj
‘I am’, etc., and доштаам ^1 «CLilj ‘I have’, etc. than the resulta-
tive. They are often found in miratives and gnomic statements:
одаме хуб будааст ...I аз^_> <_>jA ‘He’s a good man (as
it turns out)’; раиси собик, даромада гуфт -У-у, ту бало
1 See Lazard, 2000; Perry, 2000; Windfuhr, 1982
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
229
будай, гапдон будай! yU у;! jl-jl	ьхЛ<3-?L-“ о“_'‘'э
!(_$! 6jj_> (jlj _> <l5I 6j‘the former director came in and said,
“Oho! So (I hear) you’re a troublemaker, a tattle-tale!’; гуфтанй
набудааст cxuJ j_G о ‘it seems she’s not about to tell’
(for the Future Participle in -ani, see 3.42); ин навозандагй
худди муллогй барин будааст » jj—(_s-S j I (j_J
...I aj j_> jjjj-j ‘playing a musical instrument is just like reading
and writing’ (seexwrfJi, 1.8, 2.23); чй зан-и хубе доштаед! «La.
!xJ « ~ .‘h	‘what a good wife you have!’. These examp-
les, moreover, suggest a connection with the resultative sense of
the Perfect, in that behavior observed in the past has been assessed
for the present judgment.
3.22	Non-Witnessed Durative
In addition to the Perfect, there are three dedicated Non-Witnessed
tenses, all structured on the form of the Perfect, and covering present,
future, past and remote past time. The Durative (present) is formed by
prefixing ме- to the Perfect tense of the verb; the (stressed)
negative is prefixed to the beginning of the form. It is written as one
word in Cyrillic; in Perso-Arabic script me- is usually written separately.
Eg. 3.22 Non-Witnessed Durative: mekardaast
‘he is (evidently) doing/ used to do/ will be doing’
Sg. 1.	мекардаам 2.	мекардай 3.	мекардааст	Pl.	Pl.	Sg. мекардаем мекардаед	xJ мекардаанд	xJ	cxuJ
Dialect variants include: 3sg. meraftas ‘he is evidently going’.
This ‘tense’ is apparently indifferent to time: it may designate habitual
or iterative actions in present, past or future time, or acts of general
validity. It is frequently found in reportage, where the writer wishes
routinely to distance himself from second-hand information.
Present time: дозир дар кадом колхоз деддонй мекардааст
.-^1	(^ (_^1_5_лз jl_kJL£ ^IxS jj j-JaLa. ‘now (I gather)
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he’s working as a peasant on some collective farm’; Шуро-хукумат
ба ятимон галла медодааст <lLc jL_а_ " . «и cu-o
cj-uuI	‘the Soviet government is (reportedly) supplying
grain to the casual laborers’ (though in the absence of a time
adverb, it could mean ‘has been’ or ‘will be’); маълум мешавад,
ки маро намешинохтаед * ~ < I ' л, ^^^д Ij_j «сХ лj л, , л
jjl ‘it is clear that you don’t (really) know me’.
General validity: this aspect of present time is one in which the Non-
Witnessed Durative is frequently used: хуллас, ки хислати одам
ба дилаш мувофик, мешудааст 1_>Uj «_>	.-.I
jjl‘In short, a person’s character (eventually)
comes to terms with his heart’; худатон фикр кунед, умри
одамизод мисли оби дуй гузашта рафтан мегирифтааст-у
аммо худи одам бехабар мемондааст < »
Lol 3 CLi ml <ДД> 3X ^j-o Зй-Sj <"> .	(_53-> (Ji-o jlj-X-ojl J_ax
cu-Л oaLLo^-x	jj-A ‘just think about it: a person’s
life is flowing by like a river, but the person himself/ herself is
unaware of it’; ин навозандагй худди муллогй барин будааст-у
нанавозед, аз хотир мебаромадааст jj___Д ^-Sj-ijl3Д
 " |  “I 6J—0(3—3—lol—Д jl < Д-1 j I3 1 1 3  “  , .,1 533—,	13—1	-La
‘playing a musical instrument is like reading-and-writing: if you
don’t play, you forget how to’. Here the first verb (budan ‘to be’)
is in the Non-Witnessed Perfect (3.21), the second in the Non-
Witnessed Durative, suggesting that the two are equivalent in
designating present or universal time.
Future time: маълум аст ки у пагох, мерафтааст eu-ml з-L*—о
! << ~ «з^" oIS_j 3I ‘it’s known that he is going tomorrow’;
одамон мегуянд, ки Окдодшох, бачах.ои моро ба чанг
мефиристодааст I3L0 j I < i bL-ijLjl j ъjLojl
dx^l ojI ~i .„з-д^-о . < ? j ‘people say that Aqpadshah will send
our children to the war’.
Past time: The aspect here is that of habitual or iterative activity: дар
заводкой пахта... кор мекарддаст ва х,ар сол тобистон ба
к,ишлок,амон бармегаштааст jl_____£ ...4—Д—Д—i^Lb^lj 3J
4 ~ Л. л 3—1 jjl а аМ Л, a <i_i jjl "   *1* (JLm 3-Л з i" '	। йЛз^1_£_д
 ...I ‘he (is said to have) worked in the cotton mills and (to have)
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
231
returned every year in summer to our village’; нак,л мекунанд,
ки боре Ахмадбек дар... Сафедкух-.- ч,уфт мерондааст
yfl 2L. .. .6J 1—А LU ... jj  LU J A *V I (_£jL_1 4—$ J I \ I—a JjLu
6 jJ>l j ^-0 ‘they do say that Ahmadbek was once a plowman
in Safedkuh’ (‘used to drive a team [of oxen]’).
Past future: This tense may replace the Imperfect in both clauses of a
counterfactual Conditional (4.36) if the conjecture is reported or
inferred indirectly: ба к,авл-и худаш ба хона даромада ин
китобча-ро дар даст-и бача-и дусола-аш дидааст, андак
дер мешудааст, китобчаро медаррондааст	j—Jj—ЗЬ
f I 4_J l_LU	' * > ** ' < <|Л jj I L. . I '	| Л Л A I Л 4.1	.
>" '  I 6 Au I j J ( a । j d > I T C tI й J L|(	<»" '   I
‘in her own words, she came into the room and saw the booklet in
the hands of her two-year-old boy; had she been a little later, he
would have torn it’ (the verbs leading up to the conditional
construction are in the Non-Witnessed Perfect of reported past
narrative).
The Non-Witnessed durative has a Subjunctive counterpart which re-
places it in a construction requiring the (Present) Subjunctive (3.27).
3.23 Non-Witnessed Past
This tense is constructed on the Past Participle of the verb plus the
Perfect of budan\ the negative is prefixed to the head of the tense,
na-karda buda-am. It is written as two words in Cyrillic. Dialect variants
include 3sg. rafta budas.
Hg. 3.23 Non-Witnessed Pluperfect: karda
budaast ‘he (evidently) had done’
Isg.	карда будаам	Г1	
2sg.	карда будай	LS1	
3sg.	карда будааст	eu-Lul	
lpl.	карда будаем	Н	
2pl.	карда будаед	xJ	
3pl.	карда будаанд	aSl	
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This form corresponds in functions of tense to the regular Pluperfect
Indicative, i.e., to denote an action completed before a more recent one
mentioned, or implied, in the same context, while connoting quotation,
inference or sudden realization. Because of the wider scope of the
Pluperfect in Tajik Persian, an English translation may sometimes use
a different past tense (cf. 3.16): лоихаи он пеш аз ч,анг тайёр
шуда будааст ьлt>j_i jLJa JI p* jl k -> _,y ‘the
project was (evidently) ready [lit. ‘had been prepared’] before the war’
(‘the draft of it...’; cf. 4.1(7). For the Non-Witnessed Perfect tense, see
3.21); падарам хату савод дошта, дар вакдхои чдвониаш чанд
сол дар мадрасахои Бухоро истикомат карда будааст LA
IjLLj	4—uu j	jj JL-U .V'l pTij’iljja.	j jJ <4 ~ i nlj jl^uu j
eu-cJ 6jcu»l a ~i . ..I ‘my father knew how to read and write;
during his youth he had spent some years at the madrasas of Bukhara’
(the son reporting his father’s statement); аз суханон-и модар-аш
мо фахмидем ки у кайхо ба шахр кучида будааст р!'.^ ... jl
cu-cul	j a A । jl <£	pi jjLo‘from what
his mother said, we gathered that he had moved to the city a long time
ago’ (quotative or inferential).
When used in historical narrative or commentary, the implication
is that later events will in due course be mentioned: аз ин чанд сад
сол пеш сайёхе аз Шахртуз ба Кободиён... гузашта ба кадом
тарафе рафта будааст jl _____________  pt. _<  Jl__	р_>1 Jl
1 <.J bjj-j 4_j_aj ^IjSLj 4~ ...jUjUIA 4_i JjJjj j A ‘afew
hundred years ago a traveler passed through Shahrtuz and Kobodion
on his way to somewhere or other’ (‘had gone... passing through...’).
In the case of a mirative use (i.e., sudden appreciation of a fact
hitherto unknown, even if discovered by personal experience), the focus
is on the inferred action(s) that had led to the result perceived: ош
омад, дар хак,ик,ат хам нагзакак, хушгушт, хушравган пухта
будаанд р-с	~	J * 1	.4—. ° j j . I pii 1
xLl bjj-i 4_5__‘the food arrived. And in fact it was quite well pre-
pared, with lots of meat and fat’ (‘they had cooked it quite nicely...’).
Sometimes the Non-Witnessed tense can carry over from the
inferential or mirative clause(s) into the actual narrative as witnessed:
аммо баъд фахмид, ки ин чиз-и сиёх зог будааст, ки бо наз-
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
233
дик омадани у ба \аво парвоз кардааст ^1 <и£	а_»_> Lal
jl 1 l^j |j J jl (jj-2u  llj '* L 4—<<•*' “I 6J J—1 j bl-* j । ->
ej-aul 6jj_£ ‘but then he realized that this black thing (as it turned out)
was a crow, which at his approach flew into the air’. (At whatever
point he identified the creature, it actually took flight in the subject’s
presence; nevertheless, this act is also described in the Non-Witnessed
Perfect, its epistemic status subsumed under zog budaast ‘it turned out
to be a crow’; cf. 3.24, last example).
3.24 Non-Witnessed Past Progressive
This Non-Witnessed counterpart of the Past and Present Progressive
tenses is formed on the Past Participle of the verb plus the Pluperfect
of the verb ‘to be’. Dialect variants include: 3sg. karsoda buddy.
Rg. 3.24 Non-Witnessed Past Progressive: karda istoda
____________budaast ‘he was (evidently) doing/ making’
Isg. карда истода будаам	fl aJj-1	adLx^J	a
2sg. карда истода будай		a jl~i..._il	aj^
3sg. карда истода будааст	C-l-uul	ajl~i...jl	aJ^
1р1. карда истода будаем	^_jl bjjj	ajLlx,, J	bJjS
2р1. карда истода будаед		Iiii 11	aj_>£
Зр1. карда истода будаанд	Л-J 1	£) ьД l_k_LXi—1 J	aj_>^
Like the Past Progressive (3.19), this tense is often used in complex
sentences to designate an activity in progress in the past at the point
when another action began—but not witnessed by the speaker: вай
китоб хонда истода будааст, ки ман дарро тад-так, кардам j
^1 aj11 "I	111 'I bjjlj-A ।_it ~ ‘he
was (evidently) reading a book when I knocked at the door’. As a
mirative: шумо як асари нав навишта истода будаед I л d,
а_>1	* «I ~	Л.jil ‘(I see) you’ve been writing a new
opus’.
In the following example, the tense takes its cue from actions
inferred in the more distant past (the wolf’s attack on the sheep) rather
than what the observer is currently witnessing (the wolf’s meal): Мурод
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сабаб-и ин безобитаги-и гусфандон-ро ёфтанй шуда, диктат
карда дид, ки дар найзор ба онх,о гург вохурда яке аз
хамчинсон-ашон-ро кафонда хурда истода будааст , ,» 
jj	euJaj <6j_i i~ aL I j jL'.a ...j-S L ,1	.. ^1
6jl". .лjI	йJ~jt a5 IjU- ] jl	I fl-ji—i jlj—lj
dj_uJ ‘Murod, wanting to ascertain the reason for the sheep’s
skittishness, looked closely and saw that a wolf had attacked them in
the reed thicket, had killed one of them, and was eating it’. (Though he
had not seen the wolf attack the sheep, presumably Murod witnessed it
eating; nevertheless the Non-Witnessed tense xurda istoda buda-ast ‘is
(presumably) eating’ is carried over from the inferential clauses—where
it is not even actualized, the clauses being reduced to past participles—to
appear where we might have expected the “witnessed” tense, xiirda
istoda-ast ‘is eating’.)
THE SUBJUNCTIVE
3.25 Present Subjunctive
The Subjunctive mood performs much the same functions as in Standard
Persian, i.e., to designate potential or otherwise unreal actions, usually
in subordinate clauses introduced by an appropriate conjunction or
Modal auxiliary, and in exclamations of desire, exhortation, imprecation,
etc. (see below). It occurs in four tenses, that of widest range and most
frequent use being the Present (also called the aorist subjunctive or the
present-future subjunctive). It corresponds to the Aorist form.
Rg. 3.25	Present Subjunctive: kunam ‘(that) I do/ make’		
sg.	Pl.	Pl.	Sg.
1. кунам	кунем	p J 'X	a
2. кунй	кунед	 1 »\<	
3. кунад	кунанд	Л \ ‘X	alk .r
The negative is formed by prefixing (stressed) на—_L: накунам «
etc. Some common verbs may regularly prefix (stressed) би—_j to
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
235
the subjunctive in spoken usage, and others in literary Tajik (3.5, 3.9).
This rarely applies to kardan, even when used independently, since it
is always to some degree auxiliary to the meaning and keeps a low
profile prosodically: х,амин тавр (бй)кунад (?'< ) jj_L
‘let him do so’. Especially is this so when kardan functions as a lexical
auxiliary: бояд инро мутолиа кунед «udLk-a I j	‘you
must study this’; stress in such cases falls on the final syllable of the
nominal constituent.
This tense operates in the realm of the potential, with reference
mainly to future time. Examples of its forms and functions are given
elsewhere for the verbs будан/ бош- ДЬ \jjj_j ‘to be’ (3.7),
доштан/ дор—jlj ______________ilj ‘to have’ (3.8), and some verbs with
orthographic anomalies (3.9). Here are some illustrations of its range
of use with ordinary verbs.
Future possibility: шояд бо онх,о вохурем p_jjj_Alj L>
‘perhaps we will meet them, we might run into them’ (forsoyaJ,
see 4.21); эдтимол у х,амин руз биёяд ‘he might come today/
this very day’ (‘probably...’).
Suggestion, exhortation: хезед, хона равем! <CiLk ‘get
up, let’s go home!’ (often linked with a related form, the Imperative:
see 3.29); чой хурй-чй? S«La. jj_i. ‘won’t you have some
tea?’ (for the particle чй <_a. X^^. in questions, see 4.8). канй,
газета хонам j_A <u_think/ maybe I’ll read the
paper’ (for kani; see 4.8); шу кардан гирад, равад jjj_S j л
jjj j-a£ ‘let her/ she should get married and leave’.
Seeking advice or approval: мо чй кор кунем? j'X jl_£ «La. I____________»
‘what shall/ should we do?’; ман х,ам равам? S^jj
‘shall I go too?’.
Protest and disbelief: ман чй тавр фаромуш кунам? j j_k «Ua. j-o
Sp. 'Л (jij^lj-i ‘how could I forget?’; нахот ran назада раванд?
S j-jjj <_л£ j_aljJ>Ji ‘would they really leave without saying
anything?’ (naxod/ naxot ‘God forbid’ may take all tenses of the
Subjunctive: see also 3.26-28).
Hoping against hope: кошки аз ин до баромада равад j I <i <,. »l <
jjj 6j_olj_i I 7. '. «I ‘if only he would leave/ would that...’ (koski
also takes the Conditional: see 4.38).
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Note that independent use of the Present Subjunctive (and with adverbs
of potential such as soyad) appears always to have future time reference;
its use with other conjunctions may include present or general reference
too. Syntactic constructions involving the Present Subjunctive are
illustrated in the following sections: Modal constructions, 4.20-23;
Concessional clauses, 4.34; Conditional sentences, 4.35; Purpose
clauses, 4.40; indefinite Relative clauses, 4.45.
3.26 Past Subjunctive
This tense is constructed with the Past Participle of the verb and the
Aorist (simple subjunctive) of budan ‘to be’.
Fig. 3.26 Past Subjunctive: karda bosam ‘I might have done’____________
Sg.	Р1.	PI.	Sg.
1. карда бошам	карда бошем	бдjS	^4>L>	\
2. карда бошй	карда бошед	J > JuLj	(	jj-iL бдЛ
3. карда бошад	карда бошанд		aJuL 6Д,T
It is structurally the Subjunctive counterpart of the Perfect Indicative
(3.15), though its scope extends over past time in general. It most
commonly occurs in doubting, questioning, or supposing, a past action
or the resulting situation, and may also speculate about an eventuality
stretching into the future.
Doubt, surprise: адаб... на инки Кароев ба хамин дарача расида
бошад? S й.Ул UJJ 4_а. jj й.1 » ( I u в-?' J-3 **^’1 J *С> - 
‘Amazing!... Is this what Qaroev has come to/ could Q. have
come to this?’; наход шумо гапи маро чшвдй фахмида бошед?
S 2.L. ал. яд а I Ln А да I	‘did you really take
me [‘my words’] seriously?’ (for naxod, see 4.17); мабодо маро
нашинохта бошад? S x-iL < л A. I; 4, lj-о lai । n ‘did he really
not recognize me/ could he really not have..?’ (see 4.17); хануз
бовар намекард, ки ду гусфанд гум шуда бошад jj-j-ft
д j.L ад -4,	Зд <дjjjL» jjL ‘he still didn’t
believe that two sheep were/ had been/ could have been lost’.
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
237
Presumption, apprehension: эх,тимол шумо хато карда бошед
л_| Л.1_1	LkA Lo_i Jl л ~ -l I ‘you’re probably mistaken’ (‘...
have probably made a mistake’); especially after the modal boyad
‘must’ in its presumptive sense: ман бояд шашсола туда ботам
ки маро падарам ба мактаб... бурда монд «t II... л, л, j_o
jSLo 6jj_>	j lj_<>	oj-lJI must have been
six years old when my father took me to school...’; илох,й ба
ягон фалокат гирифтор нашуда бошад! j LS-e <_> ^^1
!	‘My God, (I hope) he hasn’t met with
an accident!’.
Regret, reproach: кошки май ягон кило барзиёд ба хона оварда
бошам jx-iL bJjjT «uLkj jLjIL j_o 4^ j.l£ ‘if only
I had taken home one more kilo’.
Constructions using the Past Subjunctive may be found under Modals
(presumption), 4.21; clauses of Speculative Simile, 4.32; of Concession,
4.34, and Conditionals, 4.37.
3.27 Durative Past Subjunctive
This tense is constructed like the Perfect Subjunctive, with the imper-
fective prefix ме- added before the participle.
Hg. 3.27	DurativePast Subjunctive mekarda
bosam ‘I might have done/ be doing’
Isg. мекарда бошам 2sg. мекарда бошй 3sg. мекарда бошад	йл •г .г -г о О £ S Я S.
1р1. мекарда бошем 2р1. мекарда бошед Зр1. мекарда бошанд	J i7iLj 63^^ (jr*^ j *i	63^^ (jt*10
In the first instance, this form is of course the Subjunctive of a Non-
Witnessed tense, and therefore automatically replaces its Indicative
counterpart, the Non-Witnessed Durative me-karda-am (3.22), in a
construction requiring the Subjunctive. Such is the case in an Actual
conditional clause: хуб, шумо намехурда бошед, ман хурам
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f o-° Чхя, <uj3A ‘well, if (as it seems) you’re
not going to eat, I’ll eat/ let me eat’ (see 4,37, Actual conditions in the
future).
It also occurs independently, and (like its Indicative counterpart) is
seemingly indifferent to tense. It expresses conjecture, doubt, surprise,
apprehension, regret, etc. in relation not only to progressive, habitual
or iterated actions in the past, but current or potential actions of a
durative nature:
Present (speculative): хой, духтархо! Дар паровоз Вера - ба
кудо мерафта бошад? I -	j « ^La
S j_4iL>	‘Hey, girls! Vera is on the locomotive—where
might she be going?’; хеч гумон накардам ки палав хамин
хел бомаза мешуда бошад ^1 jl <l$	j_£jl &
& л Л. л n t.j_al_i J i A. ‘I had no idea that pilaf could be so
delicious’ (lit. ‘might have become...’; this is a standard locution
of the type introduced by gumon kardan ‘to think, be of the opinion’,
or a synonym). See also Speculative similes, 4.32.
Future (speculative): ин чй хушбахтй! Наход ки Бароат ба ман
зан мешуда бошад?	да 31 \ '! л.,3.11
S AaiL .7, j Л J j (3-o-i‘What good fortune! Would Baroat really
marry me?’; мана мешинохта боша? л <1 \ Л, « <Cuo
‘would he recognize me/ know me?’; очадон, ман памадура
хола-м-ба барам, мегирифта боша ё не? <jl_________________a. <La.I
S U <uiL <o_a	j-j	6jjaa_j ‘Mom, if I take/
took some tomatoes to my aunt, will/ would she accept them (or
not)?’ (with future reference, the durative aspect is sometimes
lost).
Past (speculative, presumptive), бояд Шодй хам аз ин корхои
модари мехрубонаш завк, мегирифта бошад, ки дадаррос-
занон механдид jji-SL jjLa ^LajK 3-J jl ^а ajL
» jlj j o-l‘Shodi too must
have derived enjoyment from the things his dear mother did, that
he laughed so loud’ (for expressive adjectives like qaqar-r-os, see
5.12).
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239
3.28	Present Progressive Subjunctive
This tense, formed with the Past Participle of the verb and the Perfect
Subjunctive of истодан j <1 ~ is a feature of Northern dialects
assimilated in MLT. Dialect variants include 3sg. rafsoda bosa(d).
Used independently, this subjunctive expresses conjecture, doubt,
or surprise, about an ongoing action in present or future time: Гулру
чидо гуфта истодааст? -Кор-ат набошад, духтари бечора эдти-
мол хоб дида истода бошад - Scu-ml ьл1—> u.J <Г^ La(_s_^.
' < ..I ftAl ' ' Jl d A A , J  , (J I л I Л j I ' ' j "1 *k J < Л Mil. 1..1 kXj J What
is Gulru saying? — Never mind, the poor girl is probably dreaming’;
наход у ба назди мо омада истода бошад? Lo jl лл1 j—
S xiL 6jLu_il &‘is he really coming/ on his way to see us?’.
Hg. 3.28 Present Progressive Subjunctive:
___________karda istoda bosam ‘I may be doing’
Isg. карда истода бошам	6jj£
2sg. карда истода бошй	&jl"бх_>£
3sg. карда истода бошад x-iL	ьх^
1р1. карда истода бошем
2р1. карда истода бошед
Зр1. карда истода бошанд
It also occurs in Concessive clauses (4.34): ондо аз машина хеле
дур кор карда истода бошанд хам, шавкун-и хомушнашаванда-и
он намемонад ки овоз-и дамсоя-и худро шунаванд jl I—
________ш л *  „I * 6jl_~ mil 6X^S jl—£ jja___________4 i _i А—о
xS j “ I ‘i__________________________________________iLm_ajb j Ijf 4_^ xJi I—a л i q? 6.12^	a I—al-
though they are working quite far from the machine, its constant noise
does not allow them to hear what the person next to them is saying’
(the final clause of the three in this sentence also illustrates use of the
Present Subjunctive); in Conditionals (Actual, with present reference,
4.37): агар дарсдои хондаги-ро хонда истода бошад, халал
нарасон! JIA <x_il_> ьх1 " mil 6xJ>A	^La^jx j_5I
! jI_mjj ‘if he is/ has been keeping up with the lessons taught, then
don’t spoil it!’; and speculative similes (4.32).
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3.29	Imperative and Optative
The special case of budant bos—‘to be’ as an independent verb is
described in 3.7, and the orthography of zistan and giristan, nihodan
and dodan in 3.9.
The Imperative mood is a specialized form of the subjunctive, by
which the speaker commands someone to perform an action. It exists
only in the Aorist-based form and applies only to the 2nd person (sg.
and pl.). It is formed on Stem I by suffixing zero for the singular and
the 2nd pl. personal suffixes for the plural: кун, кунед/ кунетон <
(jl-i j'iS \л ‘do, make’;ry, гуед/ гуетон jl jjj-S \<
(jL^^fsay’.
An exception to the bare Stem I singular imperative is isto\ ‘stop!’,
from истодан/ ист- -	‘to stop, stand’: исто, исто!
ман ба ту чиз-и галатй сохта дихдм	’I - J -I  !
«LLkL- Ic j-ia. ‘stop, stop! I’ve made something interesting
for you’ (‘having made... let me give you’). This applies to complex
derivatives of istodan'. боз исто! !l~ilu_>l jL'halt!’ (5.16).
Since the nominal plural in -ed might refer politely to a single
person, the form in -eton provides an explicit plural (cf. 3.4): шумо
ran зада шинетон, холпурсй кунетон < jl ~	.» sjj I „ л.
jl ~	j j I La. ‘you [people can] sit and chat, pass the time of
day’. Exceptionally, this may be used for emphasis in a (familiar)
singular: далер-у нотарс бошетон, писар-ам!	j j____jJj
j	.j I .j-.miL ‘be bold and fearless, my son!’. Stress is placed on
the initial syllable. Under some circumstances, the (stressed) prefix
би—-j may be added to these forms (see below).
In a military context, stylized imperatives for parade commands
may consist of nominals or other shortened forms without a verbal
ending or even stem: ист! J ‘halt!’ (to more than one person);
марш! j_a ‘march!’; оташ! ‘fire!’.
Addressed to categorical subordinates (e.g., in the army) or children
and other close acquaintances who are one’s social equals or inferiors,
the bare imperative is acceptable. In most other circumstances it may
be felt as too peremptory, and a variety of stratagems has evolved to
tone down or otherwise vary the force of this shortest and most functional
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
241
of verb forms (for word order, see 4.2).
Prefix bi- adds a tone of pleading or cajolery: мархамат, бйёед
j_xjL_x-> <a л -4 _>—° ‘please come, do come’, бйшин(ед) \j . з. 
.ui'>j ‘do sit down’, бйфармоед а-xjLa>a_i ‘please...’; this last
is a general-purpose polite imperative (lit. ‘command!’, turning
the concept of the imperative back on itself) which, accompanied
by a gesture, invites a guest to take appropriate action (come in,
sit down, eat, etc.); it is not so commonly used as in SP. Other
common imperatives so treated are бйпурс(ед) л . ...j .. \tJJJj_i_i
‘ask’, бйрав ‘go’, бйгу j-iC, ‘say, tell’ (usually only in the
singular). Note that bi- is not attached to the auxiliary kardan
(3.25): мархдмйт кунед а /Л =.л j-o ‘please.., be so good as
to...’ (lit. ‘do kindness’; equivalent to bifarmoed).
Particles канй or ку j_________$ placed before or after the imperative
phrase add a conversational buffer: канй, ба ман бигуед
j—jx-jj—S j-aj’so, tell me...’; ин думларо хонед, канй
crl£ , а_р|Ij«tl n ‘OK, read this sentence’; ку бйгу, ту чй
ГуфТИЮ ВаЙ ЧЙ Гуфт.......... о < <La. j <-= У1
‘well, tell me what you said and what he said’. These particles are
also used in questions (4.8).
Enclitic -a t>- adds a tone of surprise, astonishment, or urgency to an
imperative: ин мардак-а [-po] бинёд-а! [Ij-] 4____________Sjj_____a
!61-j_i'i i.i ‘just look at that guy!’.
Precative adverbs: зинхор jL^-'i j (orig. ‘mercy, quarter’) introduces
an urgent plea: зинхор касал нашавед! iJi J.< jl j
‘please/ for goodness’ sake, don’t get sick’. Words and phrases for
‘please’, generally placed first, vary perceptibly in tone and intent,
the most neutral being лутфан I I. илтимос I ~ з I1 (lit.
‘petition, beseeching’) and бемалол бошад j—iL	‘(if)
it be without trouble’ ask for assistance or a favor: илтимос, бо
овоз-и баланд ran назанед a-Lij-i аД-L jljT L	II
‘please keep your voice down/ speak quietly’; мархамат (кунед)
(а 1'1*4) ад % j____о ‘be kind (enough) to...’ more often issues an
invitation (see above, under bi-). Marhmat also acts as a deprecating
rejoinder to a thankyou. ‘Thank you’ is ташаккур л, or рахмат
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Substituting the Optative or Indicative: наталтй o U 14 ‘don’t fall’
(not the Imperative, which has a zero ending, but the Optative:
‘may you not fall’, esp. since this potential action is involuntary);
(маро) ме-бахшед л j Л \ j (Ij_o) ‘(you will) excuse me’
(Indicative); more formally, (маро) афв ме-фармоед (I
jjuLo jJa In earlier times, the 3rd pl. Optative was used instead
of a 2nd person Imperative as a specially deferential form: канй,
мархамат кунанд, аз боло гузаранд... бифармоянд... пурс-
идан айб надорад, так,сир-амон аз кадом кишлок. мешаванд?
* > * r	La^A—1 —^/1—1 jl < J *iл n
$ aSj Л, j n Л, a jl jL-oj	,jjla! ‘Well now, [let
them] kindly proceed... if you [‘they’] please... (if) it’s not pre-
sumptuous to ask, from which estate might their Worthies be?’
(for taqsir[-amon] see 2.27).
Intensification: Conversely, an Imperative may be intensified by
insertion of a particle -ho between repetitions of the imperative: xyp-xo
xyp! ! jj La jj ‘eat up!’; кароргох-и босмачиён ба гулгула
даромад, аммо ин дафъа «Гирхо-гир! Занхо-зан! Кушхо-куш!»
намегуфтанд, балки «Гурезхо-гурез! Гурезхо-гурез!» гуён
фарьёд мекашиданд ^1 Lal <а_оТjJ <t I»I r <u jLa.'L^Lj oLS_>ljj
dI . < " a n .	La—La—_La—> S 4—>—aj
Г'Л . л, л	La-J-jj-S" ‘the
Basmachi base erupted in cries, but this time they were not cries of
“Get them! Beat them! Kill them!” but rather “Run for your lives!”’.
This infix is a copy of a Turkic form of intensive imperative; not to be
confused with the plural suffix -ho.
The Optative takes the usual inflected forms of the Subjunctive.
Besides overlapping with the Imperative, it covers many of the functions
of the Subjunctive in a main clause, independent of other verbal
governance (cf. 3.25). It is usually translated by ‘let [me].../ may [you]...’,
etc.: шу кардан тирад, равад jjj <лj j	j—i ‘let her get
married and leave/ she should...’ (N. dialect). In this sense—announcing
one’s personal intention, one’s suggestion for the company, or wishes
for a third person, while leaving listeners the chance to object or
advise—Tajik also allows for the idiomatic use of verbs meaning ‘to
let, allow’ (see 4.25).
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243
The Optative may also be buffered or polished by some of the
same adverbs and enclitic particles as are used for the Imperative:
кадуи обро ман барорам-чй f j-o I£ ‘let me
get the watermelon/ why don’t I...’; илохй, асло касал нашавед!
Л,'| yL-al <^^1 ‘heavens, don’t ever fall sick!’.
The (negative) Optative may invoke a curse: асло рузи нек набинй
; ' Jjj yL-^l ‘may you never see good fortune’. Other ex-
amples of parenthetical or stock phrases are: рост-ашро гуям/ хдк,к,-и
гапро гуям I	Ijph ~i »! У to tell the truth (of
й)’;сухан дар байни мо монад j_Ll_______° I__о J-j-j jj (jS____ ‘just
between the two of us’ (‘let the word stay between us’).
CONJECTURAL MOOD
3.30	The Conjectural Mood: Introduction
This peculiarity of Northern dialects has been assimilated into MLT.
Also called the presumptive, and in Tajik the ‘probabilitive mood’
(siga-i ehtimoli), it expresses an unsubstantiated conjecture or
assumption. It is constructed upon the suppleted form of the past
participle (Past Participle II), which is Stem II plus the suffix -agi, in
three tenses: Past, Present, and Present Progressive.
In contrast with the Perfect Subjunctive, the (Past) Conjectural
incorporates within itself the sense of boyad ‘must’ (which externally
signals the Past Subjunctive of supposition, ‘have done’). In contrast
with the Non-Witnessed tenses, though it usually is inferential by
implication (one supposes a scenario on the basis of contextual clues),
the evidence is not usually presented or even alluded to in the Conjectural
sentence.
Since the speaker does not usually conjecture about his own actions
in past or present, the 1st Person is not often encountered in practice,
and will not be the one translated in the paradigms below.
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3.31	Past Conjectural
Constructed on Past Participle II in -agi, this tense takes two forms: (1)
Personal endings resembling an elided form of the Independent Present
of ‘to be’, hastam, etc., giving karda-gi-st-am, etc., the “Standard Form”;
(2) Personal endings the same as the personal enclitic Present of ‘to
be’, giving karda-gi-am, etc., the “Short Form”. The 3rd person singular
karda-gi-st is common to both forms.
Rg. 3.31 Past Conjectural: kardagist- /-gi- ‘I suppose
_________[he] did; [you] might have done’, etc._
Isg. кардагистам/-гиям ^1^-
2sg. кардагистй/-гий ^1^-
3sg. кардагист
Ipl. кардагистем/-гием
2pl. кардагистед/-гиед
3pl. кардагистанд/-гиянд
Dialect variants include, in the Standard Form: raftagisam, etc. (assimil-
ation of -Г); in the Short Form: Isg., pl. raftagem, raftaginv, Isg.
raftagiyam, Ipl. raftagiyinv, 2pl. raftagi, raftagiyi, raftaged! -get! -getonl
-git/ -giton\ 3sg. raftagi! -ge, 3pl. raftagin/ -gen/ -gfan. The same
variants may be expected for analogous segments in other tenses of the
Conjectural.
The standard tense formative is evidently a fused form of the
independent copula hastam, etc. (< kardagi hastam, etc.: 3.6). The
short form, as listed also in Fig. 3.31 (felt as colloquial, but reproduced
in MLT), uses the enclitic copula (kardagi-am, kardagi-i, etc.: 3.6),
with phonetic variants kardagem, [kardagist!, kardagist], kardagem,
kardaged, kardagem. e.g. faromus kardaged ‘you’ve probably forgotten’.
Both forms also admit the 2nd person Explicit Plural form, кардагист-
етон jl~кардаги-етон	(3.4).
The tense connotes various degrees of supposition or conjecture,
and may be translated with the help of an adverb such as ‘probably’ or
the modal idioms ‘may have, might have, must have’ (cf. 4.20): у аз
шах,р омадагист о,» _< лТ j { jl jl ‘he may/ must have come
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
245
from the city’; ондо кайдо рафтагистанд ... I Lpf
‘they might have gone long ago/ must be long gone’; ягон кор-и
ганда кардагист j jj-JS	jl_£	‘he must have done
something bad’.
This tense of the verb ‘to be’ invariably has present reference (cf.
the particles буда ojj_> and будагй	jj_>, 3.43): агар хамон
фарандидор Пулод набошад, миёнараваш будагист jl aAj-Sl
ош_ijj jji.jj < д iul j'i jlj^ -4 ‘>j_8‘if that veiled figure
is not Pulod, it must be his go-between’.
3.32	Present-Future Conjectural
The tense is constructed as the Past Conjectural with the addition of
the imperfective prefix, ме—(3.5).
Ipl. мекардагистем/-гием
2pl. мекардагистед/-гиед
3pl. мекардагистанд/-гиянд
Fig. 3.32 Present-Future Conjectural: mekardagistam!
__________-giam‘[he] might be doing/ about to do’, etc.
Isg. мекардагистам/-гиям ^1^-
2sg. мекардагистй/-гий	\(_»~*Ц| J
3sg. мекардагист
This tense appears to be the most frequently-used of the Conjectural
series in Tajik literature. It expresses a conjecture about a potential or
current (habitual or iterated) action: балки дар оянда дамроди у...
зиндагй ба cap мебурдагем j ... jl Jj—<>_л £>хД_Л jj
a_>_j . ; ‘maybe in the future he and I will live our lives
together’ (dialect reflex of the short form); сипас «даст-у-ру
мешустагистед» гуфта... камера-и кудна-и резини-и пуроб-ро
бардошта омад ... 4 ~ а "д j ' <... jj j
j_oT 4 т Ahj ; I j>_Л jj (j-bjj 1>j-a-£ ‘then, saying “(I expect)
you’ll want to wash your hands and face,” he brought out an old
rubber inner tube full of water’; «Газетам муаллимонро» у хар руз
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мехондагист .г.....	Jjj jl I‘I’ll
bet he reads the Teachers’ Gazette every day’.
The tense may be adopted by the auxiliary verb in a Conjunct verb
construction: то бадор сохта тамом мекардагистем-а? jl___$_> Is
S6|- p._, ~ o,	^1_оД < T A.I_m ‘will we be like(ly) to finish
building (it) by spring, d’you think?’ (the main verb is soxtan/ soz- ‘to
build’, conjoined with tamom kardan ‘to complete’: see 5.20; for the
particle -a, see 3.29 and 4.8).
3.33	Present Progressive Conjectural
This tense is constructed as the Past Participle of the verb plus the Past
Conjectural of the progressive auxiliary, istodan (3.18).
Dialect reflexes of these forms are subject to various contractions,
e.g. karsoday < karda istoda ast, rafsodagem < rafta istodagiam.
Rg. 3.33 Present Progressive Conjectural:
karda istodagist- /-gi- ‘[he] might be doing’
Isg. карда истодагистам/-гиям 2sg. карда истодагистй/-гий 3sg. карда истодагист	1	*1 1 и J 3 1*1 JUt > 1 b 3^S 1	1 J 1—1 b l^jl*liut >1 63^yS
1р1. карда истодагистем/-гием 2р1. карда истодагистед/-гиед Зр1. к. истодагистанд/-гиянд	11	1 11 i i 1 3I 1j-m > 1 b 3-i |	\ 3—J (1J-U 11 b 3^^ 3-j 1	3 1 i u i A 3 (_u-M	k 1 .
Since this is a form of the Perfect tense of a stative verb (Past Participle
II plus a Present tense of the copula, cf. 3.17), the time reference is to a
present state or ongoing activity: ба гумони онки дусти мудтарами
вай доло аз хоб бархоста ва чой нушида истодагист, дарро
тад-так. зад	^Ij^ jl^L»
jj jjS 3Д I jjj	Л J 6j _i	j ‘presuming that his
good friend had already risen and would be drinking tea, he tapped at
the door’ (the first verb, barxostan, is also in the Present Progressive
Conjectural, though the auxiliary is elided; as a reported observation,
these actions are in the same tense—present—as the speaker would
have used; see 4.16); балки вай... дар ягон чариш ба хун-у
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
247
хок-аш огушта шуда, дон канда истодагист jLS-j  cSJ 4<1 
i<i_il ахЛ5	ёТ j Ч j ‘quite
likely, in some meadow, weltering in gore and grime, he lies dying’
(jon kandan ‘to shed one’s life’).
PASSIVE VOICE
3.34	Passive Voice: Forms
The passive of any transitive verb, in any tense, may be formed with
Past Participle I of the verb and the auxiliary шудан/ шав- ___________Л
-‘to become’ in the appropriate tense. Stress in affirmative VPs is
not intrusive, and tends to be distributed between the final syllable of
the participle and that of the VP: харида шуда истодагист axj-S.
.“ил у ~i ... _J aj_4. ‘it is probably being bought’. (Note that in the
passive of progressive tenses, the auxiliary istoda- comes last, carrying
the tense and personal inflections.) The negative suffix на- -4_j is
added to Sudan, assuming the primary stress: шояд харида нашуда
бошад j_±>L 6xij	duLi ‘perhaps it has not been bought’.
The following lists examples of the passive voice of simplex verbs
(including some Conjunct verbs) for each of the 19 tense forms described
above (two of which each have two separate functions), in order of
semantic relatedness rather than structural complexity (cross-references
are to the Active tense equivalents).
Present Indicative: карда мешавад jj Л, n ‘it is being done, is
(habitually) done, will be done’ (3.10-11).
Present Subjunctive and Optative: бояд кушта шаванд 4 ~ Л, <, j_>L
j-Lj________i ‘they must be killed’; ин баста ба хона оварда дода
шавад? S jaalj aj^jT <i ’! ~  4 ~	^1 ‘should this package
be delivered to the house/ home?’ (with a Conjunct verb; this
entails two serial past participles. 3.9).
Imperative: фарифта нашавед! ! xjj Л. л 4 ~ ‘do not be deceiv-
ed!’ (3.29).
Present Progressive: дода шуда истодааст q.uml a J ~> mJ ax_i aJj
‘it is being given’ (3.18).
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Past Conjectural: духта шудагист	Л, «lSAjj ‘it has probably
been sewn’ (3.31).
Present-Future Conjectural: бурда мешудагистанд _____________о _____>
... j ‘they are probably being taken/will be taken away’
(3.32)."
Present Progressive Conjectural: хонда шуда истодагист oj-Jj_______1
<z^lCy^jl~i..l_il oj_i‘it is probably being read’ (3.33).
Non-Witnessed Durative: навохта мешудааст -J л < Л . „ <i < Ц•,
‘it is reportedly being performed/ regularly performed’ (3.22).
Definite Future: дида хох,ем шуд al6 ‘we will be seen’
(3.14);гуфта на-хохад шуд	jjJj \ \ 4 ~ a < ‘it will not be
said’.
Simple Past: шикаста шуд << ~Л ‘it was/ got broken’; фариф-
та шудетон jLbj-i «lUjj-s ‘you (pl.) were deceived’ (3.12).
Imperfect: нигошта мешуд jAj a « ~ Л.К-. ‘it was (being) described/
used to be depicted’ (Durative Past, 3.13); кошки аз даст дода
намешуд з А _> n~i &з1з mJ JI <1*4 Л.1 < ‘if only it hadn’t been
lost’ (Conditional, 4.36).
Past Progressive: пушида шуда истода буд »d _.l	>..< . Aj ,
j‘it was being covered/ concealed’ (3.19).
Perfect: баста шудааст <x., .«I оз___i <__3___m_i ‘it has been closed’
(resultative; 3.15, Non-Witnessed, 3.21).
Past Subjunctive: наход гирифта шуда бошад oj-i <LLajjbljV,
xiL ‘I hope it has not been seized’ (3.26).
Present Progressive Subjunctive: мабодо пухта шуда истода бошад
J.21L-I йз( "1 m J m <i ~ k . Id  » ‘I hope it isn’t being cooked’
(3.28).
Durative Past Subjunctive: наход хануз омузонда мешуда бошад?
S j-iLj йлАт-д 6jSljj_aT jj ~i a jJblj	‘don’t tell me it is still
being taught!’ (3.27).
Pluperfect: партофта шуда буд jj_i oj_____i <__L__sCi‘it had been
thrown away’ (3.16).
Non-Witnessed Pluperfect: даравида шуда будааст hj__________i
...I ojjj ‘it had evidently been harvested’ (3.23)
Non-Witnessed Pluperfect Progressive: сохта шуда истода будааст
  I ojj-i ojLs_m_jl ,m ч "i A.Lm‘it had evidently been under
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
249
construction’ (‘been being built’) (3.24).
Passivization of Complex, Composite, and Conjunct verbs, as may be
seen from some of the examples, operates on the verbal component
only; this is turned into the past participle, and followed by the tense of
Sudan corresponding to that of the active verb: бардошта на-шудааст
a j a ‘i «t-л Л,Ijj_i ‘it was (apparently) not removed’, х;ед ёд дода
нахохад шуд xi хл!jXS 6jIj jU g-Us ‘it will never be taught’.
3.35	Passive Voice: Function (1)
The passive is more frequently seen in some styles of literary Tajik
(esp. journalese) than in Standard Persian. Nevertheless, it is often
avoided if possible, especially when the agent is mentioned. Alternative
devices are available, chiefly by manipulation of the active sentence:
Word order. Preposing the object of the active sentence will switch
focus, which is a major purpose of passivization: вай-ро дустх,о-яш
надот додаанд xJ ьа1з <x>La/> л ...jj lJLg j ‘he was saved
by his friends’ (lit. ‘him, his friends [apparently] saved’; instead
of the passive вай ба туфайли-и дустх,ояш надот дода шудааст
.-.xJ e>xi 6jlj .г .1 7 ’<	~  jJ цХ/ак-,	or even the quasi-
passive, -надот ёфтааст .-. .-..I <3_aU cjL=X -); бом-ро болор-
дои гафс нигох медоранд б1Хд --------------с j'tfLj lj-------X
л ‘.j I. /the roof is held up by stout beams’.
Suppressed subject. When human agency is involved, but the identity
of the agent(s) is either unknown or known but irrelevant, an
action may be expressed in the Active voice using the 3rd person
plural of the verb without an explicit subject: уро ним соат
боздоштанд Ci" /.l i JL. oxX f_»'i IjjThe was detained for
half an hour’ (‘“they” [unknown, or perhaps well known] detained
him...’).
Ba - rafian. An idiom of limited range uses raftan ‘to go’ with a
verbal noun (Stem I converted as a noun) of the underlying active
verb to form a passive periphrasis: у шоир-и хуб-е ба шумор
ме-равад jjj jl >	j' ‘he *s reckoned (to be)
a good poet’ (’...goes by the reckoning of’, the equivalent of: ypo
шоири хубе ме-шуморанд xijLa-i^ j-cLi Ijjl ‘they
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reckon him (to be) a good poet’); китоб-и тоза-и у х.оло ба
фуруш ме-равад <_£,jjAu ^La. jl	T < ‘his new
book is now on sale/ being sold/ on the market’ (= kitob-i toza-i
й-го holo mefurusand ‘they are now selling...’).
When a passive sentence is unavoidable or preferable to an active one,
it may have one of the following variant types:
Impersonal passive. A passive (or quasi-passive; see below, 3.36)
sentence may be impersonal, i.e., the subject of a 3rd singular
form of Sudan after a Past Participle may be a situational “it”, not
explicitly mentioned: к;арор дода шуд л ajlj jlj_i or к;арор
шуд/ шуда буд, ки........._,l jJs ‘it was decided
that...’. The ultimate subject of a passive sentence may be a sentential
complement already mentioned or yet to be expressed: бех.тарин
мукофоте-ст, ки ба вай аз тарафи халк; изх.ор карда
мешавад...	<_s jJ= JI	<t_$ ,r,	~«l al< -	' j ,
... jj ,7. j n jL-e-tl ‘the best recompense is that it is expressed to
him by the people...’ (i.e., that he is appreciated for whatever the
context may reveal).
Participle in -agi. Colloquially (esp. in Northern dialects), Past Participle
II (type kardagr, see 3.44) may replace the usual Past Participle I,
especially if a stative verb is involved: дар як тараф гахдора
монда шудагй буд... дар гахдора бачаи 9-10 мох.а баста
шудагй буд jj	—Д 6J-SI—о 6jlj S ._sj_L
j<i A ... । 4_л(_о 6j <Lj	6 jlj-e-S ‘at one side a cradle
had been placed/ stood; in the cradle a child of nine or ten months
had been tied/ lay swaddled’; х.ама чашмон ба бемор духтагй
шуда буданд	A jj J n <_>	< n.a ‘all
eyes were fixed on the patient’ (ostensibly a Pluperfect Passive
tense, ‘...had been fixed [‘sewn’]’, this is really a past stative VP,
‘were fixed’; cf. 3.15-16).
Auxiliary gastan. In more literary or formal contexts, the auxiliary
Sudan may be replaced by near-synonyms гаштан/ гард-
or гардидан ‘to turn (into), become’: бо фармони
президент, раиси хукумат таъйин гардид ^1 aj___i U
jjjcj-o(jxi-xL j cLtldj J_hf‘by order of the President,
the leader of the government was appointed’.
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251
Gapping. Two coordinated VPs may share a single instance of the
passive auxiliary: тамоми кучадои шах.р асфальт ва атрофи
он кабудизор кунонда шуд i-Л ° j д л.	j»1 *~.
j-Д. ьд211д£ jIJjj 3-^ jT ^Ubujlj-LI j ‘all the streets of the town
were resurfaced and the edges planted with greenery’ (the Causative
verbs asfal’t kunondan ‘to have s.t. asphalted’ and kabudi-zor
kunondan ‘to have s.t. made into a lawn/ shrubbery’ have both
their lexical and grammatical auxiliaries collapse into a single
passive verb; for Causatives, see 5.14-15).
3.36	Passive Voice: Function (2)
The agent of a passive sentence is introduced, where necessary, by one
of several adverbial z'zo/aZ-phrases: ба восита-и a L ...Iтавассут-и
.Liuба васила-и j_i ‘by means of’, ба туфаили-и Ik ;
‘thanks to, by the intervention of’, аз тараф-и cJjJa jl ‘on the part
of (lit. ‘from the side of’; more literary in style than the others): пахта
тавассути талабадою студентдо чида мешавад L/...л ~
jj Л. _i n бл	j La<i J k ‘the cotton will be picked/ is
being picked by school and university students’; дарор аз тарафи
мадлис дабул шуд Jj ,i а a u_sjJ= jl ‘the resolution
was accepted by the assembly’ (a “short passive”; see below).
Long and Short Passive. In contrast with Standard Persian, which usually
prefers the “short passive” of composite verbs (i.e., replacement
of transitive kardan by intransitive Sudan, in the manner of a
quasi-passive; see below), Tajik tends to favor the “long passive”
(explicit passivization of kardan by addition of Sudan): cf. SP
zamin taqsim sod, Tajik замин тадсим карда шуд J-j__________________
л л, ~ a" ‘the land was divided up’ (for the passive of
Composite verbs, see further 5.19).
There appears to be no strict pattern determining the incidence
of each construction, and each is equally well-formed: дарор аз
тарафи мадлис дабул шуд/ дабул карда шуд u_s jJ= у I jlj-a
j-i алJj-La auK -» ‘the resolution was adopted by
the assembly’. However, in the case of well-established Short
Passive phrases, such as маълум шуд j_______i j-L»____о ‘it became
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known, was clear’, explicit passivization makes a clear semantic
distinction: маълум карда шуд ,< л, jl * - ‘it was made
known, divulged (by someone)’. Other impersonal verbs of intel-
legation and emotion occur especially frequently with sudarv. эхсос
мешавад	‘[it] is felt’; these are not put into the
Long Passive.
Quasi-passive. A number of Composite verbs occur in pairs, a transitive
one with an auxiliary other than kardan (e.g., табдил додан
JjIj ‘to change’, tr.) and an intransitive correlative with an
auxiliary other than Sudan (табдил ёфтан _______________iL J_,j____ri ‘to
change’, intr.). Since the auxiliaries correlate semantically (in this
case, ‘to give change’ ~ ‘to receive change’), the passive is logically
formed simply by substituting the intransitive for the transitive
auxiliary: ном-и шаб-ро табдил додем	Ij, .л,
j>_ujlj‘we changed the password’, ном-и шаб табдил ёфт
cu-sL	ш ‘the password was changed’. This substitution
may be termed the quasi-passive voice (see also 5.18, 5.19).
Some such verb pairs in dodan ~ yoftan may also be passivized
fully, if agency is to be emphasized without being identified: ин
картотека хеч тартиб дода нашудааст g j д> 4 5 _> Т
аз—6jlj _>"i‘this card file has not been put in any
order’ (see further, 5.19).
Not passive. Not every occurrence of a past participle followed by a
form of Sudan is an instance of the passive voice. As an Active
voice Conjunct verb auxiliary, sudan adds the nuance ‘to finish
(doing), do completely’ to the main verb, which precedes it in the
form of Past Participle I (5.20): Зулайхо шартнома-ро навишта
шуд-у ба ман нигох кард j 4 Л,I о I \ I >1 j
jblS-L j-o-i ‘Zulaikha wrote up the contract and looked at me’.
Here the presence of a direct object (the fact that navista sud is
transitive) sufficiently distinguishes it from a Passive voice form.
When a participle also has specialized meanings as an adjective
or noun, a sentence such as ман монда шудам	is
not ‘I was placed/ allowed’, but ‘I am [became] tired’ (from the
active sense of the intransitive mondan ‘to remain, be left behind’).
Note also that, except in the case of stative verbs (3.17), the
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253
sequence [soxtaj -am, -I, -ast, etc., that is, a transitive past participle
and the enclitic forms of ‘to be’, nearly always denotes a Perfect
Active tense, not an adjectival participle as the complement of the
copula—‘he/ she/ it has made/ spilled/ closed/ broken’, not ‘it is
made/ spilled/ closed/ broken’, etc; the latter sense is achieved in
Tajik by means of a Perfect resultative (or other past) Passive
tense using sudan: сохта шудааст cu-uJ aj-i ‘it has been
made/is made’, об рехта шудааст .-..J ах-Л <t '	<_J ‘the
water has been spilled/ is spilled’; similarly with the Pluperfect,
оина шикаста шуда буд j~ . <.*s	‘the mirror
had been broken/ was broken’, дар баста шуда буд 4 ' ... j jj
ja‘the door had been closed/ was closed’ (rather than basta
bud, which may be interpretable as ‘[he] had closed [it] ’).
Past Participle II, however, plus the copula, does usually bear
the stative, adjectival sense: баъзе радамхо бо сурхй навиштагй
буда, дар болояшон бо сиёдй хат кашидагй буд _____________________»_>
t Д л . Л. < ‘some figures were written in red, and overlined in
black’ (describing the appearance of a manuscript; cf. 3.40).
NON-FINITE FORMS
3.37 Infinitives
The Infinitive is the principal verbal noun denoting the action of the
verb (nomen actionis, action noun; in English it corresponds most
closely to the gerund in -ing, as in running is good for you) without
reference to time, agency or other grammatical arguments. Tajik Persian
has two infinitives, the “long” and the “short” infinitive.
Long Infinitive. The long, or standard, Infinitive is the form ending in
-dan or -tan (Stem II plus -an', as кардан JJ-Д ‘to do, make’, рафтан
j‘to go’), which normally serves as the citation form of a particular
verb. It has all the properties of a regular noun. Thus, it may take the
general plural suffix: боло хазидан-у поён хамидан-х;о вакилон
ба кучагардй одат карда-и моро хеле монда карданд
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IjLo uZjjLx	<_> Ji!—La j,u,д A jLL j JjjJA
jJuj^ 6jJLa ^1 j A. ‘all this crawling up and clambering down greatly
fatigued our agents, accustomed as they were to walking through streets’
(lit. ‘the crawlings-up and clamberings-down’; the plural is intended
for both infinitives, but elided from the first). As exemplified in Chapter
2, the Infinitive (and other action nouns) may take the quasi-article yaA
(2.15), may participate in izofat NPs (2.14), accept the object enclitic
-ro when Specific or Definite (2.17), and take on pronominal enclitics
(2.30).
It may also be governed by prepositions and prepositional phrases
(2.19-21), and postpositions (2.24). The most frequent and useful of
these constructions nominalize adverbial clauses of purpose, reason,
circumstance, and time (cf. 4.27-30,4.32-33).
Purpose (baroyi ‘for’; 2.20): вай-ро барон овардан-и духтур фирист-
одам	JJjjI ls'-H * j cSJ ‘I sent him to fetch
the doctor’ (‘for the fetching of the doctor’; note that the direct
object of the Infinitive itself does not take -ro).
Reason, circumstance: аммо маро, бинобар писарбача будан-ам.
pox надоданд лАз1з_1 ь1^ . ..^—ц। j i I \ a Lal as
for me, on account of my being/ since I was a boy, they did not
let me in’.
Time: руз сафед шудан замон ба кор мебаромаданд з _i а 
jSj-oTjLa J ‘as soon as it was daylight they set
to work’ (2.24).
As the subjects and objects of sentences, infinitives nominalize complete
underlying sentences of the main clause (see Sentential Complements,
4.15) . Any modifiers of the Infinitive’s clause, such as adverbials,
prepositional phrases, indirect objects, precede it just as in a finite VP,
while the subject or direct object of the Infinitive follow it as the
modifier of a nominal izofat. The Infinitive and its own (nested) object
and/ or modifiers) thus becomes a single NP, which may function as
the subject, complement, or object of a single VP, or as a prepositional
or other adverbial phrase. Examples:
As subject: акнун {чора-и ин-ро андишидан-амон} даркор аст
-jl < jj {jl » ' _ A, .v.l I jjL.] ‘now we have to
find a way to solve this’ (‘...our devising a solution-for-this is
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
255
necessary’); баъд аз он {бо хам паст-паст харф задан-и ду
кас} маълум гардид jjj dj_^	..=>_> L] jT Jl
jla-a jj ‘then two people talking in low tones could
be heard/ it was clear that two people were...’ (‘the talking of...
became known’).
As subject, and in a purpose phrase: {ба пеш-и ту омадан-ам} хам
барон {дар ин бора бо ту машварат кардан} буд ,ji_i_>
, •J
•“ л L-e 6 J*-? JJ} f-4 [f-ja-oT ‘I
came here to see you precisely in order to consult you on this
matter’ (‘my coming... was for...’).
As object, and embedded in an infinitive phrase subject: албатта {{кй
будан-и ин духтар-ро} гуфтан} дар кор нест ^j] < ~> .»11
jl£ jj {j~ °C р	jjj_i‘of course, one need not
tell (anyone) who this girl is’ (lit., ‘...to tell the being-who of this
girl is not necessary’).
As the object of a preposition, and embedded in an infinitive phrase
object: {фурсат-и {бо вай гуфтугузор кардан} на-ёфтанам-о}
мухтасаран хикоя кардам {jjj_£ jl,\£~ a S (_$j L] Ь}
j£ Ij k л [I j a al j~, ‘I recounted the gist of my not
having found an opportunity of talking things over with him’.
As object of a preposition (with two subordinate participles): ин
гандум-и зиёдатй ба {боз гашта гирифта бурдан} намеарзад
Jjjlur0-1 4-j-bj-S 4 ~ * JLj} *4	th*8
extra wheat isn’t worth taking back’.
Infinitives of Compound forms (e.g., passives, quasi-passives, and
Progressives) and Composite or Conjunct verbs perform the same
functions: ба ёфт шудан-аш умед нест j__>—о I 1 cu-sU «ц.
 \ ‘there is no hope of its being found’; ин вок.еа дар вак;ти
гуронида истодан-и Мирзо Назрулло руй дод jj <—«—SIj j-J
jlj ^jj <111 jis I Jj-j-a jj >(-,	6j_pl jj2S dij ‘this incident took
place during the actual burial of Mirzo Nazrullo/ while they were in
the process of burying M.’); {ба хамин тартиб танзим ёфтан-и
тамом-и мактабхо-и мусулмон}-ро лозим медонам
j»J^ { I j о 1 al n	j»L-JP—SL ~i ~i u-a-lS j_S
‘I consider it necessary to organize all the Muslim schools along these
lines’ (‘the being-organized...’; the whole phrase is the object oflozim
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me-donam).
If the whole of the semantic load lies with the nominal component,
the auxiliary infinitive kardan may be elided: дар маврид-и баён-и
доидадо La t> j-xL.5 jLu Jjj-o jj ‘on the occasion of explaining the
rules/ while explaining the rules’ (bayon kardan ‘to explain’).
Nouns or pronouns attached to a transitive verb Infinitive by izofat
may be either the subject or the object, which the context usually
makes clear: куштан-е у полисчи-ро ... .1  jl j' Л, < ‘his
killing the policeman’ is unambiguous, as iSKynrra шудан-и у <i ~
jl j xi ‘his being killed’; куштан-и у jl in the absence of an
explicit object, has to mean ‘killing him/ his killing, i.e., being killed’
(note again that the pronoun does not take -ro).
The Short Infinitive. The so-called “Short” Infinitive is identical
with Stem II: кард jj_____S ‘do, make’, рафт <xj_sj ‘go’. Unlike the
regular (or long) Infinitive, it is a part of the verbal rather than the
nominal system, and has a limited range of use. It occurs after modal
and other grammatical auxiliaries in impersonal idioms, in place of a
personally inflected subjunctive: ин кор-ро метавон кард (j I
jj_S jlI j jLS ‘one can do this/ this can be done’; намешавад
ба он до рафт cj-s j J*s impossible to go there, one
cannot go there’ (see 4.24); бояд гуфт, ки.....xa jjL> ‘it must
be said, that...’.
The Short infinitive also forms the Definite Future tense, with the
Aorist of xostan: ходам кард j j£ j>j>letc. (3.14).
3.38	Other Nouns of Action and Activity
All verbs have long and short infinitives. Not all verbs have one or
more of the other Action Noun types available; these, too, vary in
range of functions, and are never simply Action Nouns or gerunds.
The most frequently occurring Action Noun type (there are at least
70 exemplars in use), and the closest to the (long) Infinitive in some
functions, is that formed on Stem I by suffixing -иш <ji-: навозит
(jiijl ‘kind treatment, caress; playing (a musical instrument)’, бошиш
(ju .7>l_. ‘presence, stay’ (budan, ‘to be’), ходит (ji_Alj ‘wish, re-
quest’, пурсиш (j?. j-i ‘question’, бориш (_£ jL> ‘rain(fall), shower’
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
257
{boridan ‘to rain’). All are additionally instance nouns; some have
specialized in only one meaning of the verb, or have evolved metaphorical
senses: созиш p ‘accord, agreement’ (bo — soxtan ‘to get along
with’), равиш p jj ‘method, procedure’ (raftan ‘to go’). They have
all the properties of nouns, and may substitute for infinitives in many
cases (with a shift in meaning toward nouns of instance), but usually
retaining some of the dynamic force of the verb: пурсишх.о-и у
мех,монх;о-ро хеле монда карданд IjLajI л ___________a jl  <,j-i
bj-Sl_a I < ‘his questions made the guests very tired’ (cf.
pursidan-i й... ‘his questioning...’).
An important role of this verbal noun is as the nominal component
of verbal idioms and Composite verbs: xohis kardan ‘to request’, bo
— sozis kardan ‘to come to terms with, put up with, make do with’
(see 5.18).
Forms identical with Stem I or Stem II, functioning as action or
instance nouns (or even product nouns) are occasionally found: фуруш-и
хона '< < p jj______s ‘the sale of the house’, шитоб-и асп-давонон
jl -.Ijл._. ...I  J a ‘the speed of the horse-racers’; вак;т-и рафт-и
онх,о I__pl cu-2j ‘at the time of their leaving/ when they left’
(equivalent here to the infinitive raftan)', баромад-и офтоб j—al
. .1 ~ io ‘sunrise’ (an instance noun). The Stem II form occasionally
functions as a sort of reduced passive participle in izofat with the agent
or affiliate: бофт-и Бухоро 1 j1 ~ ; o>-sL ‘woven in Bukhara’, сохт-и
давлатй <_pJjj .-^Al_____ш ‘state-manufactured’; this form is sporadic
and non-productive. (For both these forms, see further, 5.1).
Many such nouns occur coupled with a cognate (or complementary)
noun or Stem form, often in composite verbs: зист-у зиндагй/
зиндагонй (pLSj-S j \(_(X j p,„..p ‘life, livelihood’, киштукор
(кардан) (jjj-S) jL_£ j .-.A < ‘sowing, fanning; to work the land’,
гирудор jlj j ‘struggle, conflict’ (see 5.11).
An activity noun (or gerund) may commonly be formed by adding
the suffix -Й LS- to the agent noun (in Stem I) of Composite verbs,
which has the functional range of the Infinitive: e.g., пахтачинй
iP L .‘cotton picking’; this is described further under Lexis (5.2).
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3.39	Verbal Adjectives and Adverbs
Verbal adjectives, as such and when functioning as adverbs, may be
distinguished from participles proper in that they lack an indication of
tense. Like the verbal nouns other than infinitives, verbal adjectives
vary in their lexical characteristics and syntactic properties, even within
the same form class. These variations are generally the direct result of
the semantic and grammatical peculiarities of the source verb.
Two suffixes on Stem I form “active” adjectives transparently related
to the activity or state expressed by the verb.
Verbal adjective in -o L- : applied generally to a verb of perception,
intellection, ability or moral quality. Many of these are active in sense,
both attributive and predicative in function, and may be substantivized:
доно LlIj ‘wise, sapient’, тавоно LiljJi ‘strong, powerful, able’,
бино Lla_i ‘sighted, able to see’: mard-i dono-e ‘a wise man,’ binoyon
‘those who can see’. Others are mainly or exclusively predicative:
раво нест Ijj ‘it is not permissible’ (raftan ‘to go’). Several
derived from transitive verbs have a passive sense: хоно Lilj_b. ‘leg-
ible’, фах,мо I n a ‘intelligible, comprehensible’. They are usually
negatable with the nominal prefix но—L> (no-bino ‘blind’); note the
irregular no-Jon ‘ignorant’ and no-tavon ‘weak, powerless’.
Two are of note syntactically:
доро Ijlj ‘possessing, endowed with’ is used as an attribute, and
predicatively with the verb ‘to be’ in a periphrasis of its source
verb dostan ‘to have’, generally with the object in izofaf.
мутахассисон-и доро-и маълумот-и олй <_$! jlj jl \ «
(-jJL-c. iTjl—aj-Ь_____a ‘specialists with [‘having’] higher education’;
масдар доро-и категория-и тарз аст a < ^Ijlj j <  * «
с.1 и, Jj-L ‘the Infinitive has/ is endowed with the category of voice’;
exceptionally, in predicative use, doro may occur immediately
before the verb without izofaf. ин забон-е, ки имруз матбуот-и
тодик доро мебошанд, махсус-и забони форсист j—>1
1	—A J MlI—I—1—A I J IJ	1 Lj	1 (-1 л	О I
________________i oL-jj ‘the language (that is) employed in Tajik
publications today is primarily Persian’ (‘...which Tajik publications
are in possession of...’).
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
259
гуё Lj-S ‘saying; as if (to say)’ functions like a conjunction, introduc-
ing a speculative simile: танбалон-и нобакор чунон одиста
pox. мераванд, ки гуё дадамашонро мешуморанд jyl_______________ш
Ijtjl ‘ji д 1—>j k  k j-j° ьIj  -j 1 и ft! (jl jlk_>L>
j-Sjl a jii(_r-o ‘the good-for-nothing slackers walk as slowly as if
they are counting their steps’ (4.32; for cunon, see 2.47).
Verbal adverb in -он (jl-: also built on Stem I, this “circumstantial
verb” (fe’l-i hoi in Tajik) is frequent in occurrence and always active
in sense (it is in fact the original Present Participle, since superseded
by the agentive in-anJa: 3.40): давон jl jj ‘running’, хамёза-кунон
jllk 6j I j ‘yawning’. A few function as attributive adjectives, main-
ly in stock phrases such as об-и равон jljj	‘running water’,
ЯШК-И сузон jl jj_uu <k j,l ‘burning tears’.
Its principal function, however, is adverbial, to denote an action
carried on simultaneously with that of the main verb: модар табассум-
кунон ба бачааш нигод-мекард & Lkl 14_a_j «и (jllk jt ui j" jjLa
jj<_< »‘smiling, the mother looked at her child.’ That of simplex verbs
may be duplicated for emphasis: бачадо давон-давон баромаданд
aLj-oTj_> jljJ (jljj I *<i । ‘the children ran out/ came running up’.
It is most frequently, and productively, derived from Composite
verbs and complex VPs: ханда-кунон jLlk ‘laughing’, ran-
занон (jL> j  ik, судбат-кунон J Ilk ,ri j -> ‘talking, conversing’.
It may feature as the verb of a quite long and complex adverbial
phrase: ба мард-и кулодпуш ишора-кунон ба мо -Ана даминаст
-гуфт	~ * <11- La-j jIlk 6 jLil (jiaylk jj_a_>‘point-
ing to the man wearing the hat, he told us, “that’s him’”. It may supply
a manner adverbial, in a similar way to the Conjunct verb construction
(5.20): у дарро тараддос-занон пушид jllj ^l----------Ijjj jl
.< . Л.ju ‘he slammed the door (shut)/ closed the door with a bang’
(taraqqos-zada could be substituted). It may connote an instrumental
or other mode of action, other than simply comitative: Носир-и Хисрав
соз-аш-ро озмоиш-кунон аз он торафт овоздо-и нав мебарорад
jljT (Zu-SjLj (jl jl (jLjk(jii_jl—о jT Ij	jl—i-ч jj “i -> j—^11
‘Nasir Khusrow, (by) experimenting with his instrument,
produces more and more new melodies’ (‘...testing his instrument,
continually brings out of it...’).
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Once again, the verb guftan ‘to say’ generates an important member
of the form class: гуён jUj-S ‘saying’ (or the form guftcr, see 3.40) is
conventionally supplied between the speech string and the verb of
utterance (or thought) when discourse is reported: «хуб шуд» гуён
фикр мекард вай, осудатар шуда jл jLj-S "j-Д
6 j-Д	“‘that’s all right,” he thought, feeling relieved’ (for
this construction and associated idioms, see 4.18).
3.40	Participles: General
Participles are verbal adjectives which retain some of the properties of
verbs, such as voice (Active or Passive), aspect (punctual, durative,
resultative), and tense (time reference). They are not conjugated for
person, but interact with nominals (e.g., pronouns and personal enclitics)
to nominalize various kinds of verb phrase or clause. Eight forms are
recognized in Tajik, covering six aspecto-temporal slots: Past, Past
Progressive, Present, Present Progressive, Present-future, and Future.
Three participles are shared in common with SP; those in -дагй/ -таги
(3.43^46) are peculiar to Tajik. The participles have
properties and functions characteristic either of nouns or verbs to different
degrees, as summarized in Fig. 3.40. The features identified in Fig.
3.40 may be spelled out as follows.
Lex./Subs. ‘Lexical noun or Substantivization’: In the case of participles
used as nouns, it is useful to distinguish those forms which may
produce lexical nouns (L) such as may be found in a dictionary
(e.g., хонанда a j_Al‘reader’), and those which may only be
substantivized (S) for grammatical purposes (e.g., гуфтани-хо
La o ‘things about to be said/ worth saying’.
Adjective: Not all participles function as full attributive and predicative
adjectives; e.g., they may not take the comparative or superlative
suffixes -тар(ин)	Past Participle II may be a predicative
adjective in some idioms: баъзе радамхо... дар боло-яшон бо
сиёхй хат кашидагй буд U jl__________Д-^Ь _>j	.а . .
jj-j , Дл 1Д$ LA ‘some letters... were overlined in black’
(in the absence of a form of sudan this cannot be a passive tense).
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261
’ig. 3.40 Participles: Characteristic Features
	Present кунанда 6 j 'i ‘15	Past I карда	Past II кардагй	Pres.-Future мекардагй	Future карданй
Noun: Lex./Subs.	L	L	S	S	S
Adjective	/	/	(/)		(/)
Nom. sent. comp.		/	J	J	
Progr.+ istoda(gi)		/	J		
Forms tense		J	J	J	(/)
Tensed: P Pr F	Pr	P (Pr)	P	P Pr F	F
Indic. / Modal	(I)	I	I,M	I,M	I,M
Active / Passive	A	A, P	A, P	A, P	A, (P)
The future participle in its active function is a predicative adjec-
tive only (мо рафтанй шудем	j ‘we got ready to
go’), and only when used passively from a transitive verb does it
appear attributively (як филм-и диданй	‘a film
worth seeing’).
Nom. sent, comp.: Does the participle nominalize sentential comple-
ments? That is, can it encapsulate, for instance, a relative clause in
a noun phrase, as об-и аз х;авз оварда-амон --------------------a. JI
jL> 1jjT ‘the water we had brought from the pool’ (see 3.43)?
Progr. + istodagi-. Does a particular participle correspond to a morpho-
logically distinct Progressive version? Only the two past participles,
in forms such as хонда истода 4>jL_l—eu_J oj-SIand хонда
истодагй C,«tI jA ‘(busy) reading; being read’ (3.45).
Does it combine with an auxiliary to form a tense, or not? The check
in parentheses (/) for the Future Participle, карданй	—S,
acknowledges a “quasi-future tense,” a construction in which the
tense of the auxiliary varies (3.42).
Is the participle itself “tensed,” i.e., must it be interpreted as P(ast),
Pr(esent), or F(uture) in its non-finite functions? The Present-Future
participle mekardagi appears to be indifferent to tense, and may
be read as Past, Present or Future according to context (3.46).
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Is it generally to be seen as expressing a real occurrence (Indicative),
or may it express a modal nuance such as potentiality, intention,
conjecture?
Is it active and/or passive in voice? All the participles are minimally
both active and passive in that those derived from a transitive verb
may be passivized, e.g., дода шаванда ajJajlj ‘bemg given’;
the more versatile ones are either active or passive in their simple
form, in accordance with their syntactic function. The future
participle earns half marks here, because from some transitive
verbs it may have a passive sense, e.g., хурданй j jA ‘edible’;
the primary reading, however, remains active (3.42).
A glance over Fig. 3.40 shows that Past Participle I [karda] has all the
pertinent features, functioning equally as part of the nominal and part
of the verbal system. It is closely followed by Past Participle II [kardagi],
which lacks only adjectival status, and the Present-Future mekardagi,
which further lacks a progressive form (though it may itself express
the progressive); these two are marginally more verbal than nominal.
The Future Participle [kardarii] lacks a progressive form and the capacity
to nominalize clauses; it is marginally more nominal than verbal. The
Present Participle [kunanda] is the least versatile, most constrained,
and most nominal of the set.
Negation: An important variable not shown in Fig. 3.40 is the form of
the negative prefix (no- or na-) that a participle may accept. Essentially,
this is indicative of its functioning (in that context only) in a nominal
(ho—L) or verbal capacity (на- -_S ). All the participles may accept
na-, and the Present Partciple [kunanda], Past Participle I [karda], and
Future Participle [kardarii] may additionally accept no- to negate forms
established as attributive adjectives: но-арзанда aaJiJjl L ‘negligible,
worthless’ (also наарзанда	но-кишта 4 T ‘unsown,
fallow’, но-гуфтанй ^-13____a_SLj ‘not to be divulged’; cf. себи но-
расида/ но-пухта 4 " 4_>I_S\ ал-j	‘unripe apple’, but
мехмон-и на-расида ал шjj jl д.$ «‘guest who has not arrived, a
no-show’ (a reduced relative clause, the participle being used with
verbal force); гушти но-пухта 4 ~ \	‘uncooked meat’ (i.e.,
‘raw’, an adjective), but гушти пухта-на-шуда 4
‘meat not (fully, properly) cooked’ (the result of an unfinished action).
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263
3.41 Present Participle [kunanda]
Formed by suffixing -anda to Stem I, this participle is also known as
the agent noun or agentive, which expresses its primary function:
нависанда oj u, ’writing; writer’; ронанда .‘Jj ‘driving;
driver’. It is active only, and refers to habitual or general activity. As
an adjective it may modify other nouns:	% * n-v ‘the coming/ next
Friday’, and may form a comparative and superlative: гудозанда-тар
аз оташ JI ь xLj I j S ‘more melting than fire’; даванда-
тарин-и аспон jl *  <	‘the swiftest [‘most running’] of
the horses’.
The Present Participle has only the one form, but may be derived
from passivized, Complex, Composite, and Conjunct verbs, as well as
many verb phrases: гирифта шаванда	j.2 ‘being seized’,
чудо(на)шаванда 3 Л. V-	j—i	‘(in)separable’ (‘(not)
coming apart’), х;ал кунанда ьзJ-a. ‘decisive’, хонда дихднда
& л 6 jJi I ‘performing (songs)’.
Substantivization. As a noun it may take plural suffixes and all other
appropriate lexical and grammatical adjuncts; a number of such nouns
are fully lexicalized: хонандагон-и мух;тарам-и мо jl——i.
L_o j ~ -v a ‘our respected readers’, нависандаги-ро меомузонанд
xUil Jj-olu-в I	‘they teach writing’ (noun of profession,
from нависанда \' ‘writer’; cf. 5.2. This suffix -gi is not the
same as that of Past Participle II and the Present-Future Participle).
The verb ‘to be’ forms a present participle regularly on Stem I,
which functions only as an agent noun, бошанда oj 'i .M-. ‘resident,
inhabitant’: бошандагон-и ин дара о jj ^1	‘the inhabit-
ants of this valley’. The place of the copular present participle ‘being’
is taken by the past participles, буда and будагй (3.43).
The verb ‘to have’ likewise forms an agent поипдоранда
‘holder, keeper, owner, bearer’: доранда-и ин мактуб j-J axljlj
, .j ". < - ‘the bearer of this letter’. This is negated irregularly, by
means of the composite form дошта-на-шаванда о «Gbilj (lit.
‘not becoming owner’). Cf. also the verbal adjectivedoro (3.39).
Direct objects of a substantivized Present Participle normally follow
it as modifiers in izofat construction: кушанда-и хеш-и мир Ьл Л. <
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j__j—a	‘the killer of the Mir’s kin’, нависанда-и ин китоб
кист? tp... Л	‘who is the writer of this book?’.
If the object is that of an adjectival participle used attributively (in a
nominalized relative clause), it will precede the participle, together
with any indirect object and adverbial adjuncts, and the antecedent as
the head of an izofat phrase: гурриши гушро кар-кунанда-е кард
(_fl	I j	‘it let out a deafening roar’ (‘...a roar
deafening the ear’; more usual are phrases with Non-Specific objects,
авшаби нафас-танг-кунанда-е ^1	, , л. ‘a stifling
night’); киштибон... ба одам-и гупсар-ро дар об фароранда...
гуфт ...	<_Л jj I jjjujS	ЛХ ‘the boatman
said to the man (who was) launching the inflated goatskin raft...’.
Negation The Present Participle is negated with the verbal negative
prefix na- (directly preceding the verbal component in composites):
дар ин кор х;ам ба мо ягонаги-и вайрон-на-шаванда-и халкдо-и
сокин-и Тодикистон ёрй мерасонад Lo <_>	_>!£ ^1 jj
d*	д a I A.	(jljjj ‘in this
task, too, the indestructible unity of the peoples inhabiting Tajikistan
comes to our aid’ (‘not-being-ruined’; this use of the Present Participle
of Sudan in a potential sense is quite productive in modern prose; cf.
those formed on the Future Participle, 3.42).
Passivization. The participle may also have a (progressive or habitual)
passive sense: Сиддик, хон... маоши аз подшохд ба худаш дода-
шаванда-ро ба китобхарй сарф кард jI (_»_________о ... jLA
>—о.u-jl t S 4_> 13 6ш 6jlj (jijJ3 -k_i I .7..U . Siddiq
Khan spent the stipend that was given him by the court on (buying)
books’ (i.e., his regular stipend, that ‘being [habitually] given’).
3.42 Future Participle [kardani]
Stressed -1 is suffixed to the infinitive: рафтанй o'iT aj ‘about to go’,
диданй ‘about to see; that should be seen’. This common
Persian gerundive has expanded its use in Tajik far beyond that
encountered in SP. It may be derived from either an intransitive or a
transitive verb (simplex or composite), function as either attribute or
predicate, and be either active or passive in voice; these three alternatives
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
265
combine to determine its precise meaning in a given context.
With a human subject there is always, more or less, a connotation
of volition or intention: хохарам ба мактаб омаданй буд j-Л
jj_i	оТ _ *< * /ту sister was all for attending school/ wanted to
goto school’;писарам духтур шуданй (аст)
...I) ‘my son wants to be(come) a doctor’; Мурод сабаб-и ин
безобитаги-и гусфандон-ро ёфтанй шуда,.. J-.I <_l_i—и, <jlj—»
blj Ijjjlc.» ... L J > ‘Murod, wanting to
ascertain/ resolving to find out the reason for the sheep’s unease,..’. In
some dialect idioms it may approximate a reduced purpose clause: vay
sahr xondarii raft ‘he went to the city to study’, man Alxitoy ravam
apa-m didarii ‘I’m going to Alkhitoy to see my sister’.
Quasi-Future tense. In its eveiyday manifestation, the Future Participle
combines with a tense of the verb ‘to be’, most frequently the (Present)
enclitic series (Fig. 3.6a) in a quasi-future tense (Fig. 3.42; note the
orthographic reflexes of they-glide after the vowel -i; either spelling is
acceptable).
Eg. 3.42 Participial Quasi-FutureTense: kardani-
_________am ‘I am going to do, intend doing’
Isg. карданиам/-ям
2sg. карданий
3sg. карданистЛй аст
Ipl. карданием	I ^"Хр.j°*
2pl. карданиед	a-jI	'j
3pl. карданианд/-янд
The Independent series of ‘to be’ may also be used, as also its negative
(Fig. 3.6b-c): кай омаданй хастед? S ,.i । л ... a	‘when are
you/will you be coming?’;хеч ХУЧУМ карданй нестанд g-j-л
...	‘they’re not going to attack’. Colloquially, the copula
may be omitted: шумо озмоиш карданй-мй?	(ji-aLa jT La-4.
‘are you going to tiy it out?’. Other tenses, aspects (a prospective
aspect) and semantic nuances may be obtained by changing the auxiliaiy:
боз чизе гуфтанй буд jо a	jk ‘she was about to say
something more’; мо рафтанй мешавем 4. u ~i~ aj La‘we’re
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getting ready to go’; агар рафтани бошам, телефон мекунам j_SI
—о	(_S_C1—s j ‘if I’m going to go/ decide to go, I’ll
phone’ (subjunctive in a clause of possible condition; see 4.35); маро
ба душман доданй шуда истодаанд	j » л.л ? Ij___»
All ‘they’re getting ready to give me to the enemy’.
Dynamic adjectives. Verbs of motion, and particularly рафтан
‘to go’, are the most commonly formulated in terms of the Future
Participle. Other adjectival forms may replace the participle, e.g., равона
*L_Jjj (see 2.39, 5.4) from Stem I of raftan/ rav- ‘to go’: ман
Исталинобод равона будам ки нашуд csljj d .Tj .i-. ...I
j—‘I was about to/ supposed to go to Stalinabad, but it
didn’t work out’ (contrasting with its meaning in SP, ‘on one’s way,
heading (for)’; cf. also рафтагор _________ij ‘heading for’, 2.41; 5.2).
The versatile adjective formative -i may generate an epithet of des-
tination, given the right noun: даннатй ".‘bound for heaven,
saved’ (of a person; of a place, ‘heavenly’); дузахй ‘condemned
to hell, damned; hellish, infernal’.
Voice. The Future Participle of a transitive verb may be either active
(‘about to do’), or passive, typically with a connotation of potential,
validity, or obligation (‘feasible, worth doing, a must-do’). Unlike SP
usage, Tajik generally requires the active reading; but the context is
decisive. An animate (esp. human) subject argues an active reading, an
inanimate subject (or head noun) a passive sense: гуфтанй набудааст
ajj—xl ОГ| a X ‘it seems she’s not about to tell’, but дохо-и
ногуфтанй a	‘places unmentionable/ not to be di-
vulged’; ман уро диданй набудам	I jjl ‘1 had no
intention of seeing him’, but филм-и диданист	._.,i-I,,
‘it’s a film worth seeing’. Definitively, the complex participle from the
“long passive” can generally be used: шабона... дарсхо-и хонда
шудани-ро тайёр мекардам I aaSi ^1	«~.1 Л.
jSj-a jb-L ‘at night... I prepared the lessons that were to be done’.
The passive sense of the participle is available only from a limited
range of transitive verbs, е^.,хурданй	‘edible’, нушиданй
‘drinkable, potable’, хонданй	‘worth reading, to
be read’. These are occasionally substantivized: хондани-хои он
тамом шуд	jT	jA'that’s all we need to read/ the
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
267
part worth reading is finished’.
Negatives. The Future Participial takes the verbal prefix na-, or the
nominal prefix no-, according to its function. Thus a VP (in which the
participle is the predicate) is negated with na-, usually attached to the
copula or other verbal component: омаданй набуда-аст J
4>jj ‘(I hear) he won’t be coming’, or the negative copula:
даромаданй нест	Jjj ‘she does not intend to enroll’.
More emphatically, it maybe prefixed to the participle: Мухаррам
пулро на-гирифтанй буд jj_>	a• j	‘Muharram
simply wouldn’t take the money’.
In a participial NP, in which the participle is an attribute, no- is
prefixed to the participial itself (Jo-ho-i no-guftani). Composite negative
idioms, however, are frequently negated with the verbal prefix: тамом-
на-шуданй ~i ‘interminable, endless’ (‘not about to finish’;
cf. those formed on the Present Participle, 3.41).
3.43 Past Participles I and II
Tajik has two past participles: the common Persian one, formed on
Stem II with the suffix -a 4_-: карда ojjJS, рафта	_> (Past Partic-
iple I), and one peculiar to Tajik, which adds -гй to the former:
кардагй j-£, рафтагй c><~ »j (Past Participle II). Both of these
help to form complex tenses (karda makes as many as ten, and kardagi
the three Conjectural tenses); both may combine with other auxiliaries
to form passive and progressive participles (3.45).
The primary distinction between them is said to be one of stylistic
register: kardagi is more colloquial. However, the latter occurs frequently
in the writings of the founders of MLT, not only in representations of
dialogue but in discursive prose. Moreover, it does show some functional
differences and is syntactically more versatile than karda. The two are
here compared and contrasted in the main functions of Tajik participles:
as attributive and predicative adjectives, as nouns, in their capacity to
nominalize VPs, and in their verbal nuances (tense, aspect, and voice;
cf. Fig. 3.40). This section will treat the two participles in their shared
functions; 3.43 deals with features special to Participle II.
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As adjectives. Past Participle I may be linked to a head noun attributively
in izofaf, that of transitive verbs is passive in meaning: сухан-и санчдда
6л j 'i... j Ч ‘measured speech’; that of intransitive verbs refers to
an action completed in the past: солхо-и гузашта « ~
‘pastyears’.
Past Participle I may form comparatives and superlatives: боз хам
шикаста-тар накунед л r><?t	4 л ,Л Л. jL ‘don’t break it any
further’ (‘...make it more broken’); як писари дуст-дошта-тарин-аш
T	‘the best-loved boy’ (‘a boy most-
loved-of-them’).
In keeping with Tajik’s preference for the “long passive” (3.36),
transitive participles that express the result of a cumulating process, or
form part of a phrase emphasizing the action that was performed, are
supplemented by шуда a ‘having been/ become’: мива-и пусида
шуда axi	‘rotted fruit’; байт-и як бор хонда-шуда-
ро дубора хондан дуруст нест !_,«>□______i axilj___к jL Л-j
ст у» cmjj JJ-ila jj ‘it is not fair to recite again a verse
(that has been) recited once’. (Cf. the Present Progressive participle,
used when an action is observed in progress: 3.43).
Archaic forms with a prefixed perfective bi- and elision of the first
vowel may be found in poetry: гул-и бишкуфта 4 ". «< л, . JJ gul-i
biskufta ‘blooming rose’ (sukuftan ‘to blossom’).
As nouns. Both past participles may be substantivized. Past Participle
I makes passive nouns (patient nouns) from transitive verbs, active
(agent nouns) from intransitive, and a number of both kinds are lexical
items: вай ба шунида бовар намекард jjL_> aj__________j 1 a.4_.
jjJ^j^C/he did not believe what he heard’; навишта-хо-и матбуот
cuLcj jk-A ^La Л,‘the writings of the press’, гуфта-хо-и радио
juJ j ^La	‘radio announcements’ (respectively, ‘what has been/
is written’, ‘...said’); дар pox афтода-мондагон ojl__5__Ы alj _>з
jL-Sxil___о ‘those (who have) fallen exhausted by the wayside’ (from
intr. mondan ‘to stay’, as a Conjunct auxiliary—see 5.20; with human
plural, 2.6).
Lexical nouns include: мурда aj_p ‘corpse’, гумошта 4 '< 4.1 n \
‘appointee, agent’, гузашта 4____j_______S ‘the past’, гузаштагон
jl<" Л.,‘Л ‘the departed, our predecessors’. Past Participle I is also the
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
269
base form on which composite adjectives and nouns may be built:
нав-расида * ' _  ‘newcomer’, дахон-дида	‘widely-
traveled, experienced’ (5.8). Past Participle II generates ad hoc substan-
tivizations (see next).
Nominalizations. In participial phrases derived from clauses (of which
this was an example in English), adverbials and other grammatical
arguments generally precede the attributive participle, though an agent
may follow it in izofat: унвон-и... к,абул ёфта-и у Jj j a ...jl j_Lc
jl a - «I . ‘the title... received by him/ that he received’. This is one of
two main types of nominalization of a relative clause.
(1) Object type, in which the antecedent was the object of the relative
clause. Transitive past participles of both types are extensively so
used, with a possessive pronoun or pronominal enclitic representing
the agent. The NP so formed may be the subject or object of the
main sentence, or the object of an adposition: мо мадбур будем,
ки {об-и аз хавз оварда-амон}-ро зуд кор фармуда бак,ия-
аш-ро резонем ____________a. jl <-jT] «—£	jj—?—?—° *—°
л . »Ii j I j 1ч t о ।	“jj '{oI—* * jT we were
obliged to use the water that we had brought from the pool quickly
and pour the rest (of it) away’ (‘...the water brought by us from
the pool...’); хамон чизхо-и ба чашм-и худ дида-ат-ро гуфта
дех! !бЛ <1 ". а < I jOilaiJj Jj-a. » Л,	^а. jt—a-Л ‘tell [us]
what you saw with your own eyes!’ (‘saying-give the very things
seen by you with...’; for the Conjunct construction, see 5.20).
With Past Participle II: ана китоб-и овардаги-ам
I	j j jT ‘here’s the book that I brought’; мазмун-и мактуб-хо-и
нависондаги-атон-ро ба у нак.л кардам	» .А а
JIS jL I j jLI	‘I repeated to him the contents
of the letters you had dictated’ (navisondan, causative of navistan
‘to write’); ру-и ту сиёх бо кор-и кардаги-ат кати!
।	jLS L> *1 _  ‘shame on you for the deed you
did!’ (lit., ‘your face [is] black with the deed done by you’; a
circumpositional phrase, see 2.25). Past Participle II has a broader
range of structures for this type; see 3.44.
(2) Subject type. A more colloquial type of nominalized relative clause
is that in which the antecedent appertained to the subject of the
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main clause, and is linked to it (in the nominalization, as in the
original), by an anaphoric pronominal enclitic: як заминкан-и
ним-аш аз снаряд фуру-рафта jl
‘a dugout, half-demolished/ half of it de- molished by
shells’; замин-и гандум-аш дарав карда-шуда ut. » i
&	jjj ‘a field with its wheat harvested’ (a “long passive”
participle).
With Past Participle II: замин-и галладона-аш даравидагй
цЫ <Cilj<d_c	—□ j ‘a field with its grain harvested’,
курта-и парчагул-и ранг-аш аз офтоб паридагй а <
jl j	<La.jL ‘a flowered dress, its color
faded from the sun’; бемор-и ду даст-аш тахтача-банд кардагй
л1_1 <t т Ч ~ (jiiA  <.j jj ‘a patient with both arms in
splints’.
Both participles participate in this construction, which is a
reduced relative clause of Persian type (not too different from its
English counterpart), the relative link -e ki and the copula in the
clause having been reduced to an izofat particle: betnor\e ki —> -i]
du dast-as taxtaca-band [bud] ‘a patient [who had —> with] both
his arms in splints’. Ordinary adjectives may expand their scope
by a similar device: мард-и дандон-аш тилло yLL
‘the man with the gold tooth’ (2.40).
Adverbials. Both forms (though esp. Past Participle I) frequently appear
in absolute adverbial phrases (cf. 2.48): офтоб набаромада , .1 ". »T
ба—oTj—с, ‘before sunrise’ (‘the sun not having risen’), ана-мана на-
гуфта 4___" ° < ' 4_L_a *l_LI ‘before you could say “knife”’ (for ana and
mana as particles, see 4.8), ба ин нигох накарда sj(juL
‘regardless/ irrespective of this’. Adverbial phrases and idioms include:
гуфтагй барин	< ‘by the way,../tell me,..’ (‘as [if] told’,
with postposition barin', 2.23).
Serial verb coordinates, Past Participle I plays an important part in
the syntax of complex sentences: it may often replace a finite verb (or
verbs) except the last, whether of the same or different subjects, giving
rise to various senses. This construction will be discussed under Syntax
(4.19); here two aspects of it may usefully be noted.
(1) Both participial forms of the verb ‘to be’, буда and будагй
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
271
j_>, are indifferent to tense and aspect: they adopt the tense
established by the main verb, and may be translated in English as
‘being’ rather than ‘having been’: дар пешгох-и ин хона..,
чо-и мактабдор-нишин буда, охурча-и пеши дар-и даромад
кафшкан буд <6jjЛ.'i^1л<..4J>Lk ^1	1 jj
jij* a < j of jj jj	 La-j—‘in the anteroom of this
building... was [‘being’] the schoolmaster’s place; the section by
the entrance was the place where one left one’s shoes’; дар хона
будаги-хо j_i <u>La. _>j ‘those who are/ were in the house’.
Similarly, дошта 4-1. Л.Н and доштагй	usually mean
‘having, who has/ have’ (see 3.44, first parag.).
(2) Depending on contextual cues, a subordinate participle may have
an instrumental or causal, rather than a merely temporal, sense:
дар остона пой куфта ё нидо-е бароварда уро аз омадани
худ огох мекарданд sjjjTj-j L	jJ
~ б1_$Т jj-i. (ja-of jl I jjl ‘on the threshold they would
alert her of their arrival by stamping their feet or calling out’
(‘...having raised a shout’) In such interpretations, the participle is
not necessarily “past” in relation to the tense of the main verb.
3.44 Past Participle II [kardagi]
This and its two derivatives of the type karda istodagi and mekardagi
are formed by adding the suffix -gi to the appropriate Past Participle I.
In Perso-Arabic these forms have also been written as 4_li j, etc. A
formally identical suffix may also be found deriving relative adjectives
from nouns (хонагй	‘domestic’, 5.4; see also 2.53) and,
conversely, forming nouns of quality, profession, or activity from
adjectives, including the Present Participle (навозандагй xlj I
‘playing a musical instrument, musicianship’), and even Past Participle
I (фарсудагй j_____________s ‘exhaustion, decrepitude’; see 5.2). In all
cases these are simply variants of the two (or more) suffix(es) -7,
which also perform these functions: the -gi variant occurs after a terminal
vowel (usually -a; see 1.8).
This coincidence of forms for two quite different functions is similar
to the coincidence of the English verbal substantives ending in -ing,
Z12	CHAPTER THREE
one a participle (i.e., an adjective, as in ‘a running sore’ or ‘he is
running for mayor’), the other a gerund (a noun of activity, as in
‘running a mile is exhausting’). The confusion makes for syntactic
blends in both languages: in English, the “fused participle” (frowned
on by careful writers, but widely used in speech) treats a gerund like a
participle: we should not tolerate them making people into slaves (cf.
...their making people into slaves)', in Tajik, conversely, examples may
be found of Past Participle II forms being construed more like gerunds:
мои ки он урф-у одатх.о-и занро каниз, мардро гулом мекардагй
аз миён бардошта шавад -j 	|^LpjLc j u-sj-c. jl <l£ jU
4.(jLx-a jl (	IjJj-o ‘let those traditions of
making girls into household slaves and men into slave soldiers be
abolished’ (the “participle” in ...mardro gulom mekardagl ‘...making
men slaves’ — since the presence of the object marker -ro precludes a
true passive—could more logically be replaced by an infinitive: ...mardro
gulom kardan ‘the making (of) men (into) slaves’). In neither language
do speakers seem unduly inconvenienced by this homomorphy.
Like Past Participle I, transitive instances of II may be either active
or passive. Whereas Participle I focuses more on the action than the
result, Participle II appears to be somewhat more stative or static, as in
its combining with auxiliaries other than the tense-formative ‘to be’
(see below). Participle II is negated with the verbal prefix na-', it may
also be substantivized: мол на-доштаги-до чи мекунанд? JI______о
<? -a <La. La ^<3 .7,1 ‘what will those do who don’t have live-
stock?’ (present tense and active voice for dostan and budan, see 3.43);
баъзе дидаги-х.о-яш-ро х,икоя мекард	.а , .
j« «LuKa. ‘he told (us) some of the things he had seen’ (past and
passive).
A predicative participle in -gi may be introduced by a copula other
than the enclitic series of ‘to be’ (often it must, if it is to be a participle
and not an integral part of a tense). These forms of budan ‘to be’ or
Sudan ‘to become’ add their own nuances of tense and aspect: печах,о-яш
на-шинондагй буд jЪ >7.~i J  ‘the screws |.vc. of
the door] were not fixed properly’ (see next; and cf. 3.46).
Indicative or Conjectural? As a passive predicative adjective, Past
Participle II may be the complement of an appropriate part of the verb
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
273
‘to be’ (unlike Past Participle I): печахо-яш на-шинондагй буд
jjj aJ ~i_> и '> (jiijLa <.a _i_i ‘the screws [sc. of the door] were not/
had not been fixed properly’. On the face of it, this statement (though
not couched in an actual Conjectural tense) seems likely to be an
inference (drawn, perhaps, when the door unexpectedly fell off) rather
than a statement of fact. Indeed this participle, in its role as a formative
of the three Conjectural tenses, may have either a Conjectural or an
Indicative sense. Thus вай эхдимол аз шахр омадагй JI ~ ~ I
of j $ 4, j I ‘he has probably come from the city’, in view of the
adverb, is unequivocally a short form of omadagist, the Past Conjectural
(3.31); but мо доле аз шахр омадагй а_<Л j j & jl VLa. Lo ‘we
have just come from the city’ must be presumed a true statement of
personal experience, a short form of the (resultative) Perfect Indicative
omada-em.
Depending on the context, a transitive Past Participle II such as
хондагй	jJil jA ‘having (been) read’ may have any of four readings:
Active (human) and Indicative, ‘having read’; Passive (inanimate) and
Indicative, ‘having been read’; Active (human) and Conjectural, ‘having
probably read’; Passive (inanimate) and Conjectural, ‘having probably
been read’. However, in the context of the constructions illustrated
below, not only is the Indicative the default reading, but the past tense
may also be neutralized in favor of that of the main verb. The active
voice will likewise be the default reading; as with Past Participle I, a
passive sense may be made explicit by insertion of the corresponding
past participle of the passive auxiliary sudan: хона-и тоза сохта
шудагй 4~.<l... & Jis LSlA ‘the newly built house’.
Nominalizations. In several functions, the participles are similar or
identical: ман худам дар ин ч;о зоида шудагй 1 гкЛ л! jj
‘I myself was born here’ (for zoida suda-am).
Colloquially, Past Participle II is often preferred as an attributive
adjective, especially in the kind of adjectival phrase linked to the
antecedent by a pronominal enclitic or pronoun. As noted in 3.43,
these are of two types:
(1) Object type: The anaphoric pronominal enclitic (or independent
pronoun), representing the agent (the subject of the relative clause),
is attached to the participle modifying the patient (underlying object
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CHAPTER THREE
of the relative clause). The formulation of this that is common to
both participles was illustrated in 3.43: китоб-и овардаги-ам/
овардаги-и ман	<_.L1S ‘the book (that)
I brought’ (lit, ‘the book brought of me’).
However, a simple phrase of this type, with the same meaning,
may be formulated in two other ways, which are available to
Participle II, but not I: китов-и ман овардагй , .1 " <
j j jl, and овардаги-ам китоб	The first of
these appears to be a reduced relative clause, with the relative link
-e ki replaced by an izofat particle and the finite verb deleted (cf.
Type 2, as analyzed in 3.43). The second, a reversal of the common
type, is probably a caique on the equivalent Turkic (Uzbek) phrase,
which it resembles in structure (modifier before head). This type
also occurs without the pronominal enclitic, and with all varieties
of Past Participle II: дар хона нигохубин мекардагй одам
хам на-дорад	a	J 1 * j * I * as!_a.
‘there isn’t even anyone at home to look after (them)’ (‘a watch-
and-see-doing person’: the Present-Future Participle, 3.46).
(2) Subject type: The enclitic referencing the subject of the main
clause is joined by izofat to the subject of the underlying relative
clause: курта-и парчагул-и рангаш аз офтоб паридагй
<_>Ls_hT jl (_rLX4-?.jU ‘a flowered dress, its color
faded from the sun’. This type is illustrated for both participles in
3.43.
Not every occurrence of -dagi/ -tagi is an instance of Past Participle
II. As noted in 3.43, the quality noun formative -й (5.2) when
suffixed to adjectives and participles ending in -a 4_- usually inserts
-g-: мондагй	‘tiredness’ (from monda ‘tired’, orig. Past Part-
iciple I ‘left behind’); куфтаги-и рохи дур галаба мекард
jn < >1 j- jjj 61 j ‘the exhaustion of the long journey was taking its
toll’ (from kiifta, Past Participle I of kiiftanl kiib- ‘to pound, mash’).
3.45 Present Progressive Participle [karda istoda/ -gi]
An action described while it is in progress uses the participle corres-
ponding to the Present Progressive tense (3.18), or, more colloquially,
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
275
that corresponding in form to the Progressive Conjectural (3.32); the
form, however, does not entail the function, and both varieties of the
Present Progressive are Indicative in mood and in every respect inter-
changeable. They have the same properties as the past participles,
except that of lexical nouns (the prerogative only of Past Participle I).
In Perso-Arabic they have also been written in the form 6jj___$
t>jl" ,„_J, etc.
Progressive participles may be either active or passive as appropriate:
одам-и хандида истода ...бл-»,С1А ‘the man laughing’,
козих.о {пойдо-и ба тахди шикам кашида-истода-ашон}-ро
хдм ба кор дароварда дупоя гурехтанд qa'i.i	I <
j 1 *\ Ч.	L_ijj	jj J a о bjl i m >1 л * Л1
‘even the qadis brought their legs, (that were) sprawled out beneath
their bellies, into action, and fled hot-foot’ (‘two-legged’); садо-и
рабоб-и навохта-шуда- истода 6jj________i 4_L__id jji
&jl" .„ J ‘the sound of a rabob being played’.
As nouns, they may appear in any sentence slot: гурехта-истода-
ги-хо... бе тартиб тир холй мекарданд ...La^jl ~ _d 4_3_kjj_S
xSj-jSLj а (.jJI—=> j ~   _* ~ j ~	: ‘those fleeing fired at random’
(subject); тамом-и вок,еах,о-и дозир дар руи олам шуда истода-
ги-ро як ба як гуфта додан гирифт jj	4_*_il j
ej-i(jjlj 4	6j_i jJlc (_5jj ‘he began to
report one by one all the events currently happening on earth’ (object);
раис бо кор карда истода-до савол-у давоб карда гузашта
мерафт 4.~1,ц..\Х	«_Jз-з. j JlLa &jl~i I	L j
‘the boss made the rounds, questioning those who were
working’ (as a prepositional phrase; for the conjunct auxiliary guzastan,
see 5.20).
Such noun phrases may have a number of adjuncts (subject,
adverbials) preceding them in nominalizations of relative or other
clauses: агар чиз-и вай ёд дода истода-ро дуруст гуфта
натавонад,.. ..< jJil4 cu-m jj I j ojl"... J 6jlj jLj	j£I
‘if he cannot correctly repeat something that he is being taught,..’.
The origin of the progressive use of the past participle of istodan
‘to stand’ lies in the stative sense of the Perfect tense of this and other
verbs of “arrested motion”: истода-ам J 6jl ~ u.J ‘I have stopped,
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CHAPTER THREE
i.e., am standing still’ (see 3.17). In fact, Past Participle I or II of
istodan may be used as a stative adverbial to a simple adjective, as
well as a verbal participle: барои чй шумо гусола-и ором
истодаги-ро мезанед? I ъ Да1 Т J *1 jl	I п Л 4_а.<^1^
S j-i-L j ‘why are you hitting a calf that is standing quietly?’
Colloquially, istodagi may be replaced by other stative participles:
гаштагй ^<7 Л. C ‘having become, being’, нишастагй ^<3  A.'i
‘sitting’, огхобидагй	_ .1 j a. ‘lying’: xo-o, хамон мардак-и
дар миёна-и замин каланд зада гаштагй jj Xjj—о jl—о_л <1-1л
6jJ а-1К л J 5LSl_i_o‘Yeah, that guy hoeing in the field’.
Истодагй d ~ ...jl is also a quality noun, ‘firmness, persever-
ance’ (cf. 3.43, 3.44).
3.46 Present-Future Participle [mekardagi]
This corresponds formally to the Present Conjectural tense (3.32), and
in some instances (e.g., the first example below) this mood is clearly
intended. In most cases, however, it denotes an actual present, habitual,
or intended action, and appears to be simply a variant of me- (the
imperfective prefix; 3.5) plus Past Participle I, as in the Non-Witnessed
Durative (3.22), which is likewise indifferent to tense.
In Perso-Arabic these forms are written either as ^a jX or
etc.
The main function of this participle is in extended NPs that
nominalize relative clauses or other sentential complements, mostly of
Type (2) as noted for Past Participle II (3.43-44): духтар курта-и
медухтаги-аш-ро ба модар-аш нишон дод «изj—£ j—з—З.а
ala qL13 (ji. jjLaj	jj^'the girl showed the dress she was
sewing to her mother’ (‘the dress (being) sewn by Ьег’);дору-и ман
мехурдагй бисёр талх аст £-13 jl _> .. >	jj-XcsjjIj
. ..I ‘the medicine I am taking is very bitter’; бой {як бурда нон-и
до к,-и хар-руза ба ятим медодаги-аш}-ро харчй барзиёд донист
jLj j	I (jil (-jXj Ij_i_o T_i <i_i a jjjj-* cjLj jjjj X_J
‘the rich man considered the single loaf of dry bread per day
that he gave to the day-laborer to be far too much’ (‘...being given by
him’). In each of these cases, a passive participle present, modifying
MORPHOLOGY: VERBS
277
the object, is in turn modified by an anaphoric personal enclitic referring
to the agent.
When specific agency is not claimed (e.g., the action is hypothetical,
or impersonal), the same construction does without an anaphoric
pronominal: ман зан-и cap медодагй надорам j________________ j
jljJi	‘I’m not about to divorce my wife’ (lit. ‘I don’t have a
wife to divorce’, passive participle of sar dodan ‘to set free’); лои
хишт-и имруз мешудаги-ро як руз пеш хобондан даркор
jL^jj (jj-jLiLi. jjj I	<^.i in ‘the clay
for the bricks to be made today should be mixed [‘laid down’] one day
ahead’ (future or general truth reference).
As in the last two examples, the participle often bears a modal
nuance of potential or obligation: мард-ро мард мекардагй хам
зан, номард мекардагй хам зан -jj <_^зп зj_________________в I j3j_>
(j j ^з_ л зj_o II ‘a wife can make a good man or a bad man of
her husband’ (prov., lit. ‘the one (capable of) making a man into either
a man... is the woman’; an active participle).
These participles may nominalize quite complex and embedded
sentential complements, in the following case two coordinate clauses
specifying the object, ‘those traditions’: мон ки он урф-у одатхо-и
занро каниз, мардро гулом мекардагй аз миён бардошта шавад
jl (_^3j<_i л I j3j_o < j j VS Ij-Sj ^ЬрзЬс j i_sj_c (jl <i_£ (jL-o
j4 ~ .7,| д(jlj-o ‘let those traditions of making girls into household
slaves and men into slave soldiers be abolished’ (for commentary on
this, see 3.44).
The Present-Future Participle is versatile in its tense and aspect
reference. In the extended adverbial phrase, дар пеш-и дар-и ба бог
кушода-мешудаги-и хавлй ^з _> л &з! Л. < с j3 j3
ijJ j_a. ‘in front of the door opening onto the garden of the house’, this
participle of the passive kusoda Sudan ‘to be opened’ represents a
stative perfect, ‘has been opened/ is open’; in the adjective phrase,
нома-и ба Бухоро мефиристодаги-атон	I jl—Ц> <_i %----о Is
"  ‘the letter you are sending to Bukhara’, it refers most
probably to the near future (since if the letter has already been sent on
its way, the past participlefiristoda[gi] would be more appropriate).
Like the Present and Future Participles, this one too may generate
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CHAPTER THREE
negative adjectives of potential: руз-и деч вадт аз ёд-и кас на-
мебаромадагй ^а-ЛjL jl cujj jjj ‘a day that
no one will ever forget’ (‘...never to depart from one’s memory’).
Even more readily than the Future Participle and Past Participle II,
the Present-Future Participle as an adjective may occur as the com-
plement of the verb sudan ‘to become, reach a state of being/ doing
s.t.’ (3.42, 3.44, 4.24; cf. also 3.36): акнун маро мардум... «чурабой
саркор» ва датто «раис» мегуфтагй шуда буданд lj___________ jj '-<1
6J-2, a Si	J	Jj-a. ...fjj-o
‘now people had taken to addressing me as “dear friend” or even
“chief”; аз руз-и расидан-и мактуб cap шуда дар ду ба хона-и
дамдигар омадурафт намуда, дадон-ашонро пур карда «К,удо-
чон!» мегуфтагй ва якдигар-ро аз дад зиёд иззат-у дурмат ме-
кардагй шуданд SQlA с jj jJt e>A_i	qa-^j jjj jl
1 (j La. I AA	j-i I j jj I ui i La J t 6 Jj a '> " * * J J * л *
aSj_±	j	aL j j» jl I	‘from the day
that the letter arrived, each of them started visiting the other; they
would overwhelm each other with compliments and treat each other
with excessive deference’; аввал зандо-и амир ва баъд модар-и
амир ба вай рашк бурданд ва уро дида на-ме-тавонистагй
шуданд I Jjl J Aujj-J < £ IO J _>-J~al jjLi AA-i 3 J-Л-О ^L^Jij Jjl
a1j—i	...'J6aja‘first the emir’s wives, then the mother of
the emir, grew jealous of her, and could not bear the sight of her’
(‘...became unable to see her’).
In the last example, sudand expresses the cumulative change from
one state to another (‘...finished by not being able...’; cf. the terminative
sense of sudan in Conjunct verb constructions, 5.20). Similarly, in the
present tense: бисьёр касон... датто ба газета хондан хуш-ашон
на-ме-омадагй мешавад jaSIj_A «t-^-jj-S <l o~i-> ...jl jl .......
aSj л, j n	j,I d,Л.jS. ‘many people... reach the point of not
even liking to read the newspaper’ (‘...become it-not-coming-pleasing-
to-them by the reading of newspaper[sj’; cf. 2.30).
CHAPTER FOUR
SYNTAX
PHRASE AND SIMPLE SENTENCE
4.1 The Noun Phrase
The principal forms of NP have been described ad hoc under the
appropriate sections of Chapter 2, as a necessary matrix to the
morphology. They are not exclusive structures, but overlap and incor-
porate parts and rules one of another. Here they are summarized as
eight types, in approximate order of complexity or inclusiveness, in
subject position where accompanied by a VP.
(1)	The noun alone. The Tajik NP may consist minimally of a single
nominal, which may be a noun, a personal or other kinds of pronoun,
or an infinitive: хондан осой аст .л. .-.J (jl (jj-Jj < ‘reading is
easy.’ The noun alone (or with a plural suffix), without any determiner,
modifier, or enclitic, is either Non-Specific or Definite: китоб  .1 <
‘books (in general)’ or ‘the book’; китобх;о L^L1£ ‘(lots of/ all kinds
of) books’ or ‘the books’ (2.7). Singular or plural nouns may acquire
the enclitic -e, which designates them as either Indefinite or Specific:
хафтанома(-до)-е ^(La) 4_aLi< ~ a a ‘some weekly magazine(s) or
other’ or ‘a certain weekly/ certain weeklies’ (2.8).
Alternately, the noun may be preceded by the numeral yak ‘one’ in
its role as a quasi-indefinite article: як пиёла * И __»  < _ ‘a cup’, як
пиёла-хо LacJLjj ‘some cups’. The article and noun may further
add the indefinite enclitic: як пиёла-ко-е	___□_> .£..i (2.7-9;
Fig. 2.7). This construction distinguishes the quasi-articleyak from its
role as a numeral, where the noun it determines cannot bear either a
plural suffix or an indefinite enclitic (see next).
(2)	Numerical NP. A numeral precedes the noun, which is not modified
for plural: сад руз jjj j____‘one hundred days’. A classifier may
intervene between number and numerand: чор-та дарахт Li jL.
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cjAjj ‘four trees’ (2.50). A numerical NP is usually considered an
Indefinite NP; it may not take the enclitic -e, but it may be made
Definite by a determiner (see below).
Basic question and answer words having to do with quantity behave
syntactically in the same way (2.45, 2.53): чанд(-та) дарахт? <
(L-й) ‘how many trees’? —чандин дарахт, чандин то
(_□ j-~i -ч	‘several trees; several’; бисер дарахт
ejAjj jl j ...  ‘many trees’; чй кддар нон? SjL.	‘how
much bread? —аз хад зиёд нон jls jLj jl ‘too much bread’;
кар дарахт cuA jj j_a ‘each/ every tree’, хама шаб .. л, <_д a ‘every
night’ (2.37).
The negative хеч ‘no, none’ is self-sufficient as a reply, but requires
a negative prefix on any associated verb: хеч нон (надорем) &  &
(jk-jjlxL) jls‘(we have) no bread’, хеч дарахт (нест)	.a
(c.Nij'i) ‘(there is/ are) no tree, no trees’.
(3)	Preposed determiner: As these interrogatives and determiners change
from quantity to quality, plurals optionally appear: баъзе дарахт(хо)
(La)cljAjJ .A « j ‘some trees’. The adjective digar ‘other’ (normally
Type 5) is attracted by its semantic proximity to ‘some’ into the same
pattern of preposed juxtaposition, but requires a marked plural for a
plural referent: дигар кас-он	‘other persons’ (2.33).
Determiners of Definite NPs (notably interrogatives and demon-
stratives) precede the noun, which may be singular or plural: кадом
шахе? -ин шахе	‘which person?—this
person’, чй цо-хо-е? -хамон цо-хо LaL^. 51—o_a- S'^LaL^ < .
‘what places? —those (same/ very) places’ (2.31, 2.34—35). This type
is perhaps the most stable and inclusive; determiners may introduce an
extended NP of all types except No. 4: кадом се нафар? -хамин
се нафар j-ай <_j n в- аЛ 4______________ш ‘which three people?
—these (same) three people’, хамон гусфанд-и чарб-кунондаги-и
мо U	UiijS. jLa-Л ‘that fattened sheep of ours/ that
sheep we fattened up’ (3.43(1)).
Superlatives (2.43) and ordinal adjectives ending in -in (2.52)
canonically precede the noun: бехтарин китоб-хо 1_$_>1_й_£
‘the best books’, аввалин руз-и тобистон jl". .Is Jjj jl ‘the
first day of summer’; in Tajik, however (though not in SP) they may
SYNTAX
281
optionally follow the noun in iwfat (Type 5), and might therefore be
classified under the next heading.
(4)	Contextually preposed adjectives: Certain classes of adjective may
optionally be preposed, such as:
Adjectives in affective or evaluative NPs, especially exclamations:
бечора дуст-и ман!	jj t-jl ‘my poor friend!’, хуб
писар (буда-аст)	j_i) j ...j <_	‘(he seems to be a)
good boy’.
Ordinal adjectives ending in -urn (2.52): дуйум поезд jjuL ‘the
second train’ (contrary to SP usage, also followed in Tajik, with
this ordinal following in iwfat', cf. the formulations with the ordinal
in -(um)in, under Type 3).
Adjectives in -ngi: дина-нгй рузнома «t-oLjjj ‘yesterday’s
paper’ (these are adjectives of relation to time or space: 5.4).
Participles in -gi (Past Participle II, 3.43-46), in one formulation of a
nominalized relative clause: омадагй одам	<J ‘the per-
son who came’. This may include the underlying agent, as a personal
enclitic on the participle: овараги-ам китоб .—.I " 5
‘the book that I brought’ (3.43(1); a form of iwfat construction is
also an alternative to this: kitob-i man ovardagi (3.44).
Adjective phrases with the postposition barin ‘like’ (2.23) may either
precede or follow the head: ман барин шахе Ч Л, о-°*а
person like me’ (also as an iwfat NP, Type 5: шахс-и ман барин
O-° (J***
The four last cases under this category are all characteristic of Northern
dialect usage, and have probably been influenced by typically Turkic
structures of Uzbek, in which the modifier precedes the head noun.
(5)	Adjectival iwfat. This is the “standard” Persian formulation of an
adjectival NP: духтар-и давон jlj I Aj ‘(the) young girl’. It is
subject to modification by a terminal Indefinite enclitic and/ or an
initial quasi-articleya& (cf. Type 1), and may be nested within a Nominal
iwfat (Type 7). The modifier may be quite complex, such as a pre-
positional-participial phrase representing a reduced relative clause:
донишдуён-и аз Аврупо бозгаштагй jl_> bjjjl jl йЦм > -Vib
‘students returned from Europe’.
The construction has a variant in the Split iwfat, where the Indefinite
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enclitic is added to the headnoun, and the connecting izofat particle -i
is deleted: духтар-е чавон jl‘a young girl’ (2.11).
(6)	Partitive NP: This frequent NP type designates the head as a part
of a larger nominal referent. The two are linked either by izofat (a
Type 7 construction) or by the preposition az ‘from’ (2.19). Partitive
phrases involve most kinds of nominals, particularly pronouns (see
2.31-37, passim), e.g.: деч як-е аз шумо U д. jl	‘none of
you’, ким-кадом аз тамошобинон jl'ij il-^l а.~> JI ‘some
of the spectators’. The predicative possessive pronouns, ‘mine’, ‘yours’,
etc. (2.28) are a “headless” partitive phrase, i.e., beginning with the
preposition: аз он-и мо куцо? Si______=>_£ I__о jl Jl ‘where is ours?’
(‘from that of us’). Number phrases also make use of partitives, e.g., in
fractions, where they are reversed: аз дах нуд к,исм _______5 аз у I
‘nine tenths’ (2.55).
Partitive NPs often additionally link head to modifier with izofat'.
деч кадом-и аз зандо-и худ з,j jl ^1з_£ ‘none of his
wives’ (which gives them a space in the next category).
(7)	Nominal izofat-. This is the most inclusive NP type (2.12-16),
which may incorporate or link with any of the others. It consists of a
nominal joined to another modifying nominal (noun, pronoun, prepo-
sitional phrase, virtually any NP) with the izofat particle: дамой ce
нафар-и тоза-и ман j-o ajh j_LL <_— ‘those three new men
of mine’ (Types 2, 3, 5, 7); таъсир-и {расидан-и {ким-кадом аз
{мо барин зандо-и саводнок}}} Ь.} jl ^1з_£	...j] _>_pb
{[[и$13з1 j_«j csLiijJ the effect of the arrival of some literate
women like us’ (Types 1, 4, 5, 6, and 7 twice; for the postposition
barm, see 2.23).
Under pronominal modifiers should be included the personal en-
clitics, as in даст-ам ____шз ‘my hand’ (2.29-30). This construction
performs the same functions as an izofat in virtually every case.
A common idiom, which may be dubbed the “contextualizing
pronominal,” uses the 3rd sg. demonstrative pronoun он jT ‘it’, or the
pronominal enclitic -am qL-, anaphorically, to refer its head noun
back to a related item (often in a separate sentence): дарвоза-и он
бисёр калон аст ...I jl । ... । jT a Jl_jj3 ‘the gate is huge’
(‘its gate is very big’—referring to an edifice just mentioned); чойхона
SYNTAX
283
рафта будем. (Он до) хурок-аш бисёр нагз <—з—ij —k_jLa.
j_i_L jl ..I '.f jJwe went to the teashop. The food
(there) is very good’ (‘its food’; cf. 2.28, Modifiers).
(8)	Topicalization: A variant sub-variety of type (7) is the Topicalized
NP, in which a possessive or partitive Nominal izofat is re-arranged,
with the modifier as head, followed by the erstwhile head in izofat
with an anaphoric pronominal enclitic: духтар ном-аш
‘the girl’s name’ (lit., ‘the girl her-name’, corresponding to nom-i
duxtar, cf. 2.30). This construction is mainly colloquial, but may be
used in written Tajik to avoid a multiple izofat phrase: лампа-и овеза
шиша-аш-ро тоза кард bjL I )Oi.l4 Л i ц. ^Jjjf _> »I ‘he
cleaned the glass of the hanging lamp’ (‘the hanging lamp its-glass’);
or when the original head, as antecedent, would be widely separated
from its relative clause: муборизае, ки ман дар давом-и се сол
бурда омадам, натида-аш фак,ат хамин руз маълум шуд
Uta , jli I 4 1 Т I «Э J—of	L_lu 4_ui г*I jJ jJ Л-о 4_Sk t/gl 6 j jI—i—o
years became known only today’ (for natija-i muboriza-e, ki...', cf.
4.45. For omadan as a Conjunct Verb auxiliary, see 5.20).
4.2 The Simple Sentence: Word Order
Since the person of the agent is incorporated in the verb, the simplest
sentence comprises a single finite verb (either intransitive, or with the
object elided): омадам ^j_lof ‘I’ve come/ here I am’ (lit., ‘I came );
дуздиданд jJij_ijJj ‘they stole [it]’. This occurs most frequently in
the case of the Imperative: истед! ! □_>“ ‘stop!/ wait!’. The comple-
ment or object of the verb, when mentioned, usually precedes it: монда
нашавед .hj.V' ь jJiLo ‘take it easy (lit. ‘don’t get tired’), y-po назад-
ам Ijjl ‘I did not hit him’ (for the grammatical status and
treatment of subject and object NPs, see 2.7-9, 2.17).
Normal sentence word order is (S)OV in main, coordinate and
dependent clauses (where Complement may substitute for Object):
холида тут мехурд j	yi ojJCi. ‘Kholida ate mulberries’,
пиразан камбагал аст	‘the old woman is
poor’. Since the person is expressed in the verb ending, there may be
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no overt subject NP: себ мехарам	... ‘I’ll buy (some)
apples’.
In peremptory imperatives, the verb often comes first; the stress
and high tone fall on the initial syllable and move progressively down
with subsequent constituents: бйё ин до! 11	.I I >_> ‘come here!’,
гйред y-po! ! Ijjl ‘seize him!’, хбнед мактуб-ро! a i'J
I ‘read the letter!’.
To foreground the subject in a negative sentence, the negative
prefix на- -_3 may be detached from the verb and preposed before the
subject NP: на хама мард-и харидор сазовор-и зан аст < а_а «с.
cj-uuI J J jl jlj a j о ‘not every suitor is deserving of a
wife’ (see further, 4.12).
The emphatic locus of a sentence is immediately before the verb;
in order to foreground the subject or agent, OSV may occur: мор-ро
ман куштам	I j_,L> ‘I (was the one who) killed the snake’;
шухи-бардор одам ман гуцам j-o jhj—‘I used
to be the one who could take a joke’ (here the NP complement also
shows anomalous word order, a preposed modifier in Turkic style; cf.
3.44). To emphasize the patient, or the activity (i.e., the VP as a
whole), OVS may be preferred: себ-ро на-мехаред шумо? ‘aren’t
you going to buy (any) apples?’.
Direct object NPs, with or without the postposition -ro, normally
precede indirect objects (introduced by the preposition ba, 2.19): ман
далам-ро ба у додам	jl_>	J-o ‘I gave him the pen’.
Weightier indirect objects, or benefactive or privative phrases, may
precede a direct object (especially if Non-Specific or Indefinite): муал-
лим az тамом-и синф имтихон гирифт  »^1 - ~ jl ~ I« .
ejjj-S jl ч ~ J ‘the teacher gave the whole class a test’. The indirect
object may be omitted if it is known from the context: ах,мад тарбуз-ро
дод jIj Ij3-j>3 ‘Ahmad gave (me, us...) the watermelon’.
Adjectival phrases may be detached from their NP and appended
after the following VP, for rhetorical effect: дар пеш сафар истода-аст,
басо пур хатар	I ... > ьз! ~i  .._>!	jj ‘before
[them] lay a journey, very dangerous’ (for safar-i baso pur-xatar..).
Nouns and NPs may be appended to a sentence, as specific examples
following a cover term, introduced by an adverbial such as хусусан
SYNTAX
285
L=>j А/махсусан Laj n ‘especially, particularly’, хатто ' *
‘even’; аз чумла-и 41 л -j. jl /ва аз ин чдумла 41 л -s j_J jl j
‘including, among them’, чунончй/ чунончи <L^jLk ‘such as, like’,
яъне o •>*_> i.e., viz. , масалан yliu for instance, e.g. , rye Lp to
wit, as it were’: вай якчанд китоб-и дарсй дорад,, чунончи
«Забон-и англисй», «Таърих-и Хиндустон», ва «Илми наботот»
ш—11^ ‘J (jL j 4—o—iLo. «jjla	—il ~ л i
"cuLLp jJ-c" j "(jl" a.jj-Ia ‘he has several textbooks, such as English
Language, History of India, and Botany'. Alternatively, the examples
are inserted parenthetically, after which the sentence concludes as usual
(cf. 2.47, 2.48).
Adverbial adjuncts normally come between the subject and the VP
(including the object or complement): мо динаруз аз бозор сабзавот
харидем	culjj^-— jl jL jl jjj4_bj ‘we bought vegetab-
les from the market yesterday.’ The usual order of adverbials is Time,
Manner, Place; sentence adverbials often begin the sentence, or follow
the subject: аз афташ, у пагох меояд a_>l_j—о aLSL jl	jl
’from the look of things, he’ll be coming tomorrow’ (cf. 2.48, under
Prepositions). An adverbial of time may begin the sentence, especially
if there are several other adverbial phrases: сол-и оянда хама-и мо
ба Хучанд меравем	.1 \ > А 4_> L Suo-A aa-LJ JL, ‘next year
we’re all going to Khujand’ (cf. 2.46-47). The unmarked order may be
changed to put the more important adverbial in the emphatic locus:
намедонам, зер-и хок чанд соат хобидам LI—j_j j
. .1	-.<-!Ш ‘1 don’t know how many hours I lay under the
earth’ (time adverbial last, next to the verb).
In colloquial speech, an adverbial (usually of place) which is an
integral part of the VP may be placed after the verb: динаруз рафтем
бозор j I jl . p a j j jj 4_j_>j‘we went to the market yesterday’.
4.3	Subject and Complement
In a sentence involving a nominal complement, whether noun or
adjective, of the type A is X or В was Y, complement is linked to
subject by a copular form of ‘to be’. In the present tense this may be
either enclitic or derived from the stems hast-, bos- or nest- (3.6-7):
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ман точик-ам jJS.j ‘I am (a) Tajik’, ситора-гон аз мо хеле
дур-анд/ дур хастанд	Ь> jl
‘the stars are very far from us’, зинда бошад з-iU ьзД j ‘long may
he/ she live’ (‘be he/ she alive’), шумо монанд-и дигарон нестед
j'i jl Д_аз aJ-jLs	‘you are not like others’. For a past tense,
the copula is based on Stem II, bud- (3.7): хаво бад набуда-аст I j_a
ajj_a2a j_a ‘the weather evidently is not bad’.
In colloquial usage present tense forms of ‘to be’ may be omitted,
especially in questions: ман точик  < 71 " ‘I’m a Tajik’, Нодир
кучо? S ЬД jjU ‘where’s Nodir?’. The negative copula nest- is often
replaced by ne: онх,о ба мо ошно не Д I ’> Ш IpT ‘they are not
known to us’.
When the complement is a Non-Specific (generic) noun, even an
ordinary count noun, it does not take any indefinite or plural marker:
падарон-и мо подабон буданд з-Дз^-а jLjjLj I__________о jIjxj ‘our
(forefathers were shepherds’ (lit. ‘shepherd’; cf. 2.7). When modified
in an adjectival iwfat, it accepts the Specific enclitic -e, and a plural
marker if appropriate: падарон-и мо подабон-хо-е кухистонй
буданд дУз"i .а. д>^La jLjL L_o j,1 jjj ‘our (forefathers
were hill shepherds’ (a Split iwfat, 2.11); хавли-хо-и димат-е хастанд
„ГГи,, а iMi ^La jL>. ‘they are expensive houses’.
The complement of an impersonal verb or expression is also either
Non-Specific or (if modified) Specific: дар ин 40 бача нест jj
1... _»~i I > ‘i ll ‘there is no child/ are no children here’; гул-хо-и
хушбу-е кучо хает?	‘where are there
(some/ any) fragrant flowers?’
The same rules for generic and Specific complements are required
after verbs expressing persistence or change of state (мондан jxlU
‘to remain’ шудан/ шав- -and гаштан/ гард- \j~	<
-jjJs or the more literary гардидан	‘to become’): ин дух-
тар-хо ба мо дугона шуданд зДз-i <CilSjj U_i Laj" < < ‘these
girls became our best friends’ (‘to us best-friend’); мехохй бесавод
монй? jl(^l‘do you want to stay illiterate?’.
Similarly construed, with subject and complement simply juxtaposed,
are verbs or expressions that acknowledge the subject’s being classed
or evaluated as of a certain quality or state: муаллим-и мо доно,
SYNTAX
287
Хатто доно-и бузург-е, хисоб ме-ёбад	,Ыа !_=> п
л_11исГо >_J ... -к jJj ‘our teacher is reckoned (to be) a scholar-
even a great scholar’; ин шахр як-е аз кухна-тарин шахрхо-и
мамлакат ба шумор меравад yi _____________S 31 csiu	I
a jl a .-.SI a n ^La j 0 ^,‘this town ranks as one of the oldest
in the country’.
4.4	Object Marking
The selective use of -po lj- to mark a NP as the object is treated
under Morphology (2.1-9).
A sentence designating a persistence or change of state, or the
acknowledgment of a quality (4.3), may be transformed into one denoting
the alteration of a state (causative) or the active recognition of a quality
(declarative). This requires a transitive verb expressing evaluation, identi-
fication, appointment, or the like, and -ro to mark the first constituent
as object (the second NP remains the unmarked complement):
Ахмадцон-ро раис интихоб карданд _.! kAjI I
_______S ‘they elected Ahmadjon chairman’, вай-ро душман хисоб
мекунанд -«'«'<  " ^1 ... у a 2.а I_>jj ‘they reckon him (to be) an
enemy’; y-po Мирзо-и к,орй хам мегуфтанд ^jLs	Ijjl
v.~,	‘they called him Mirzo-i Qori too’; (ном- и) ин пахта-
ро «Лентир» мегуянд aGuj<j а "j _>">' I" I jG \_i Q*L) ‘they
call this cotton “Lentir”’ (‘they say the name of..’; nom is optional).
The complement may be any kind of nominal, including an adjective
or a partitive phrase, and either Non-Specific or Specific (e.g., modified):
худ-ро хаста ва бехол хис кард аJI 4 j < .т ц>-а» IjG.
‘he felt [himself] tired and dispirited’; ин шахр-ро як-е аз кухна-
тарин шахрхо-и мамлакат ме-шуморанд jl	jlj—j—
'•у л л, ~ -.<1 - - ^Laja Л. j"<i '^5‘they reckon this town (to be)
of the oldest in the country’.
The nominal component of a Composite verb (5.18-19) is technically
the complement (often, the direct object) of the simple auxiliary. When
the phrase is used as a lexica) unit, however, this nominal remains
Non-Specific and is not modified or marked: харф мезадем —a.
‘we talked’ (lit. ‘struck word’); if the Composite verb is
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transitive, the external object is treated like any other direct object
(i.e., it will take -ro if Specific or Definite) but the verb’s nominal
remains unmarked: бемор-хо-ро муолида мекард Ijt ajI
n «(_aJL*_a‘he treated the patients’. However, many such nominals
are amenable to semantic and grammatical expansion (they may be
questioned, qualified, or specified), in which case they are treated as
an external object: cf. чй харф-хо-е мезанед!	_____a.
!3—-CiJ _i n ‘what are you saying!’ (Indefinite); даре мехонам
‘I’m studying’, but кадом дарс-хо-е-ро мехонед?
S	I d ‘which lessons are you studying?’ (Speci-
fic); кор кардем j(£ ‘we worked’, butKop-и нагз-е-ро кард-
ем I jl£‘we did a good job’ (Specific).
NPs may be concatenated by adding the enclitic -у/ -ю/ -ву or the
conjunction ва ‘and’ (all 3 in Arabic script) to each one except the last,
or to the penultimate one alone, or without addition (see further, 4.11).
When such a series is the direct object, -ro is normally added only to
the last of several closely coordinated nominals: {вай-у мо-ву
шумо}-ро таъин карданд _Gjj j ? I jfLa-i j L j ‘they
designated him, us and уои’;китоб, дафтар ва далам-ро руи мез
мондам	I 3 ykjj	laid the book, note-
book and pencil on the table’. The other coordinating NP conjunctions,
similarly treated, are ё U and ваё t_ 3 ‘or’; додар ё хохар-ат-ро
рафта биёр jl_<—Д—ij I jcjj-fcl3-^. La jjlj ‘go and fetch your
brother or sister’ (cf. 4.5, 4.11).
4.5	Gapping and Ellipsis
When a sentence pattern has to be repeated, a desire for economy or
rhetorical effect may cause one or more of the repeated constituents to
be omitted. Mostly these stratagems correspond closely to their counter-
parts in English.
Ellipsis of nominal elements. As well as the object enclitic -ro (4.4),
plural suffixes, personal enclitics, and some lexical affixes may be
omitted from the first of closely coordinated nouns: оянда-ву
равандагон-ро намедид	I3 $ дД33 3 ‘he did not
see the people (who were) coming and going/ arriving and leaving’
SYNTAX
289
(only the second participle carries the animate plural and direct object
markers); наю сурнаяш-ро навохтан гирифт (i.e., пау-и surnay-as...)
cu-ej-S J"' A.I I j pi, I	j ‘he began to play his bamboo
flute and double-reed flute’ (see also 4.10); хат-у савод-нок j L- <
^LjIj ‘capable of reading and [capable of] writing’ (for the suffix
-nok, see 5.4).
Gapping of the verb. Абр сиёх, офтоб пинхон, руз торик, хаво
вайрон, замин лагжонак ва осмон резанда-и борон-у барф
буд p-J—oj	jjj ‘о। d ’», l-r1'—'bl—J—“ J-jl
jj_> c_sj_i j <jljL? J1 " "1 j  < ~ Ij j I ‘the clouds were black,
the sun hidden, the day dark, the air dank, the earth slick, and the sky
pouring rain and snow’ (subject and complement are reproduced without
a copula until the final instance); хама-и маъмурон... маро хуб
мешиносанд, ман хам — онхоро <_>3-^. I j—a JI j j__о—»_о Ч_а_л
I	р_а , г. ...I \ Л.( ‘all the employees know me well, and I
them’ (gapping of a different person of the same verb—mesinosam—in
a reciprocal clause, final position; the dash—as in the next example,
placed after the subject and not in the actual missing verb slot—is
modeled on Russian usage); дехдонон имруз ба cap-и замин
нарафта-анд ва косибон-ба cap-и дастгох	jLI-Laj
л!<~,  „.< j ... - jl , ...К j j_lI <CLijJi	j‘farmers today have never
worked on the land, nor artisans at the loom’ (gapping an identical
negative verb and its adverb); абдулло аз корхо-и матбаа ran ме-
занад-у ман аз корхо-и газета-амон < * ^LajK jl <111 j_,_c
jLJ ^LajK jl (j-o j jlj, ‘Abdullo talks about matters
at the press, and I about our newspaper’ (gapping of a different person
of the same verb—gap mezanam—in a parallel clause).
Less frequently, the first of two identical verbs is gapped: дар
даст-и яке аз онхо шафтолу [—] ва дар даст-и дигар-аш
зардолу буд	jj j [-] jJI ~i a 4. L4IT jl
j jJ Ijj j ‘one of them was holding a peach, and the other an apricot’
(sic, dar dast-i digar-as means ‘in the other one’s hand’).
With multiple subjects or complements, some form of gapping is
in fact more usual than not. Sometimes, however, rhetorical effect may
require a pleonastic repetition of the verb: Фозилцон падар дорад,
модар дорад, аз ин ру гам на-дорад jjl_o
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jj J-jI jl ‘Foziljon has a father, he has a mother, so
he has no (cause for) sadness’. Tajik may juxtapose parallel clauses,
both with verbs, where English usage requires either gapping or a stop
or semi-colon between two sentences: Петка дар дам-и дар бо
лаб-у лунч-и овезон ме-истод, чашмон-и базеб-и каб-кабуд-аш
мадзун ва омода-и гирья буданд gJJ j <_J (_> jj
6jL-oT j Jjj 1. Л (jXiJj—ii—<—jl П “I? < jl 71 m_il (jljjjf
<Ljj-S ‘Petka stood by the door with his tongue hanging out, his
beautiful dark blue eyes [were] mournful and on the verge of tears’.
4.6	Verbal Agreement
The CP norm for 3rd person verbal concord was that singular nouns of
all classes took singular verb agreement, that humans and other reasoning
beings (inc. the higher animals, notably horses) in the plural took a
plural verb, and inanimate plurals took a singular verb. This system is
still often applied, but in modern varieties of Persian, including Tajik,
every other permutation may also occur. This is frequently a purely
stylistic choice; the principal criterion is the extent to which the
antecedent of the verb is felt to be individuated.
A collective noun denoting humans may agree with either a singular
or a plural verb: гуруд-е аз босмачи-ён бар дишлод тохт оварда-аст
sj jjT oxAh jyLdi а । jL n m,Li JI jj-S ‘a band of basma-
chis raided the village’ (sg., acting as a unit); гуруд-е мерафт-анд„
гурух-е меомад-анд	jj_S <,CiT	‘some
came and some/ others left’ (various individuals; cf. 2.36); халд-и ба
даядон-омада ба куча... баромада буд <_> е>з_«Т jl ? j д,
аз-> ьа-аТj_j	‘the excited people came out into the street’ (sg.,
en masse)-, мардум/ туда даромаданд jj а__of jj oj>3	__° ‘the
people/ the crowd came [pl. | in’ (individually, or in smaller groups).
A singular pronominal, if its referent is one of many, often shows
logical rather than grammatical agreement with a plural verb: xap
кадом-е аз ондо... гуфтанд.....a...L^T jl ^-oIj-S j_a ‘each
one of them... said [pl.]’; дама y-po ме-шиносад/-шиносанд <_aJb
л ' ...Iл, \д ...l', л ^y-a l_,jl ‘all know him/ everyone knows him’
(hama as a pronoun has a plural referent, ‘all’—see 2.37; singular
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291
agreement is perhaps a case of hypercorrection).
Conversely, a couple or several persons, if not identified or provided
with an active role, may take singular agreement: дар кабинаи авто-
молбил-и боркаш ду кас менишаст	Ju_.LoL3jl а .<
.....jj ‘in the cab of the truck sat two people’ (the subject
kas is grammatically singular because it follows a numeral; 2.50).
Inanimate objects may likewise be regarded either as a collective
group or as individuated entities: шох-хо-и дарахтон мечунбид
л > >••4 a jl' < j * c?1 d 1 л ‘the boughs of the trees shook’ (sg., all
together); себхо як як аз дарахт меафтоданд jl !_&._ _>...
aSjLs____Ы .-uk jj ‘the apples fell one by one from the tree’ (pl.).
Abstract action nouns, even when pluralized to indicate repetition,
generally take singular agreement: чапак-зани-хо, хуштак-каши-
xo... cap шуд j_uu ... La 5TЛ. a «La^j. ‘the clapping,
the whistling... began’.
When different persons of the verb make up a single subject, the
aggregate of 1st and 2nd, or 1st and 3rd, is normally 1st plural: мо-ву
шумо медонем »	« I» Л. j L> ‘you and we know [Ipl.]’, ман-у
Хдйрат... равона гардидем j_S «Liljj ... □-□-=>. j j.» ‘Hayrat
and I (we) set out’; of 2nd and 3rd, it is 2nd plural: ваю ту асло аз
кавл-атон нагаштед	jlsJjj jl yL^al j ‘he and you
have never gone back on your word’.
By social convention, an individual spoken of with respect (esp. in
his hearing; 3rd person), or an individual addressed politely (2nd),
takes a plural verb: устод шахс-и бузург буданд	—i aLn—
jJ_j ‘the professor was a great man’; илтимос дароед, чаноб
.j-uljj o..l a~, Il ‘please come in, sir’. Conversely, an individual
may refer to himself in a self-deprecating way as ‘we’: мо чй медонем
L> ‘what do I know?’ (cf. 2.28, 3.4).
4.7	Questions (1): Word Order and Intonation
Word order in questions is usually the same as for statements. Question
mode is marked either by interrogative pronouns or adjectives (2.34-35),
or in yes-no questions by means of interrogative particles (4.8) or
intonation alone: шумо аз ман калонтар буда-ед? j_o jl I—о—i
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S ajI ojj-j ‘are you older than I (am)?’ (Non-Witnessed perfect,
with present time reference, 3.21; the question is prompted by an
inference).
An interrogative NP normally occurs at the same place in a sentence
as would the corresponding answer: он мард кй аст? -(Он мард)
раис аст	j (jj—» jT)-	jj_a jI ‘who is that
man? —(That man is) the boss’; (вай) чй гуфт? -(Вай) хеч нагуфт
i	(c5j)~	—S <-5. (^j) ‘what did he say? —(He said)
nothing’. (For questions extending into Relative clauses, see 4.46.)
For emphasis, the question adverbial кай ‘when?’ may begin a
short interrogative sentence: кай бах,ор меояд? •? । .1 . . jLp
‘when will spring come?’. The formulation бах.ор кай меояд?
S	jL-й-е is either neutral or emphasizes the NP questioned:
‘when will spring come?’. The latter connotation may be reinforced by
a shift of phonological emphasis (a higher tone) from the interrogative
to the word questioned: bahdr kay me-oyad?.
Two interrogatives, ку and the colloquial канй ‘where?’
do not require a copula: чура-ат ку/ канй?	\j—S cJ * jj 7
‘where’s your friend?’.
Two interrogative adverbs, кай ‘when?’ and кучо I <.
‘where?’, serve for general rhetorical questions, in which their literal
meaning is less important than the expression of disbelief: ту кай
медонй, ки мухтодй чй?	л ^'.1 л	у/[since]
when do you have any idea what poverty [is]?’. Kujo, repeated in each
phrase questioned, contrasts ironically two situations seen as
incompatible: ту кучо, ин 40 кучо? U. yJ <1 у ‘whatis
someone like you doing in a place like this?’ (see 2.34).
Yes-no questions may assume the same form as statements, relying
on intonation alone: шумо хозир [ба] шахр меравед? 1 д j,
S xjj j	[y] ‘are you going to town now?’; мадлис cap
шуд? S j .4,	?—a ‘has the meeting started?’ (Fig. 4.7b). This
formulation questions the action in general; if the subject or other
topic nominal can be assumed as common knowledge, then the VP
being questioned may be preposed: cap шуд мадлис? j___________i j
I a ‘has it started, the meeting?’ (Fig. 4.7c). This does not reflect
a normal statement word order (though it could be used as an affirmative
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293
answer to this question), and has an emphatic intonation on the initial
syllable.
Intonation varies considerably between different interrogative sen-
tences, depending on structure and content. The intonation profiles
sketched in Fig. 4.7 are not the only ones possible for these sentences,
but illustrate salient differences between basic statement and question
types as described above. In written Tajik the question mark performs
the function of intonation.
Rg. 4.7 Question Intonation Profiles
4	—	— 3 2	- I	- (a) majlis sar sud. 'the meeting has started'	4	— 3	- 2	- 1 - (b) majlis sar sud? 'has the meeting started?'
4	— 3	- 2	- 1 - (c) sar sud majlis? 'has it started, the meeting?'	4	- 3	-	1 2	- 1 — (d) majlis kay hud? 'when was the meeting?’
Most intonation patterns, whether of statements as in Fig. 4.7(a) or
questions with and without interrogative words as in (b) and (d), exhibit
in general a rise followed by a fall in tone. The exception is (c), which
is also syntactically unique (though it closely matches the sense, syntax,
and intonation of Eng. ‘started, has it?’).
For the structure of indirect questions introduced by the verb
пурсидан	‘to ask’, see 4.17 and 4.18(5).
4.8	Questions (2): Particles
A polite request for information often couches the question (of the 2nd
person epistemic verb) in the negative: на-медонед наздиктарин
ошхона кудост? Six, ...I > < <Gl Ч Л.Т	a-jJljLraJ‘would
you know where the nearest restaurant is?’ (lit. ‘don’t you..?’; cf.
Asking the time, 2.54).
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Apart from intonation and negation, there are three principal particles
which signal a yes-no question (note intial stress in oyo, magar).
бё LjT occurs in initial position (occasionally, following the subject)
in the literary language: оё уро мешиносед? 1_>л1 L_>T
S >uj m.I 'i ‘do you know him?’; this is also used to introduce
indirect questions: ман намедонам, оё х,еч рох,-и халосй даст
с..... ft	olj g_A_a LT.^h^^xL у ‘I don’t know whether
there is any way of escape’.
магар Да: In questions connoting surprise or indignation (including
rhetorical questions) this particle may precede or follow the subject:
магар он-х,о-ро мешиносад? ' ^.1л, 1_,1_у>Т ‘does
he know them, then?’, ту магар Чдмоихода на-й? j < »
Sal'Ll <_? ‘aren’t you Jamoikhoja?’, сохтмон-и
цамъият-и нав магар к,авл аз дама ба дигаргунсози-и
аъзоён-и он вобаста нест? jl Jyi у.	j I»-О , „
S_i’> ‘L2_uu_1lj jl jLl .21 rl	j-Sj<i_> <L-a_ft ‘doesn’t
building a new society depend upon everyone’s promising to
transform its members?’. (Formagar as ‘perhaps’, see 4.21.)
Sometimes magar can be a neutral question marker, like oyo:
магар ту хам меравй? >______________а yi ~ ‘are you going
too?’; and oyo may sometimes introduce a loaded or rhetorical
question: оё ту дуст-и ман нестй? у " 	yi LT
‘aren’t you my friend?’.
-мй (enclitic); borrowed from Uzbek, this is the most common
yes-no question marker in colloquial Tajik (and representations
of this in MLT). It is usually attached (with a hyphen, in Cyrillic)
to the VP; stress (as a high tone) falls on the preceding syllable:
зардолу намехарёд-мй?	jJbjj‘won’t you
buy some apricots?’. For emphasis, the enclitic may be added to
the nominal questioned, even if there is an interrogative pronoun
or adjective in the sentence: чист ин, газета-мй? yJ ......
<?сГо (sic) ‘what’s this, a newspaper?’; э! чашмдард-мй
чанд руз боз? S jU jjj аЦ. jja «2.4 i^l ‘Oh! how many
days has your eye been hurting?’
A yes-no question may also be followed by a tag question phrase, ё
не (_yi l_> ‘or not?’, especially in indirect questions in the spoken
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295
language, and often in addition to 6yo or mi:: оё ягон рох-и халосй
\аст ё не? U a	Jj LT ‘is there any way of
escape (or not)?’. This ‘or not’ may sometimes be expressed as a
complete finite verb: {tu-ba mezibad-mi, na-mezibad} tamoso kar-
sod-as [karda istoda-ast] very ‘he’s looking to see whether it suits you
or not’ (ба кас-е зебидан j-u.	*4 to SLHt s o-’> w*th as a
postposition; Northern dialect). It may also be Turkicized, with mi
substituting foryo in both clauses: хоб меравад-мй, не мй? <_J
«jj-o jjj-j-o ‘will he go to sleep, or won’t he?’
Several other particles are available to refine the question phrase.
-a & I- (terminal enclitic; sometimes also initially) may act as a
ruminative interjection: инхо кй бошанд-а?	I 'J
Sь1 ‘hmm, who might these people be?’; а, ин кист-а? <al
< ‘hey, who’s this then?’; or like a tag question, as a
suggestion or a request for confirmation: губор-и дилхоро
барорем-а,чй гуфтй? <La. <ol-^jTIjL$Jj jL2 ‘let’s
blow the cobwebs away, what d’you say?’ (lit., ‘...remove the
hearts’ dust’); дар так-и коса нимкоса хаст-а? 4—^.1.^
<?лa <i ...I 5» у. ‘there’s a half-cup left in the bottom, isn’t
there?’; чй хел рузхо-и нагз буданд-а? j-i_L	J_lA «La.
Sal-jjjj-j ‘what good times they were, eh?’; connoting surprise
or shock: наход ягон тир холй накарда таслим шуданд-а?
Sol-j-Lj-i j	азj<L	3-=-“ ‘don’t tell me
they surrendered without firing a shot?’ (for naxod, cf. 4.9, 4.17).
чй «La. ‘what?’: The interrogative (2.34) is used initially as an exclamation
of surprise: чй, хунук хурдй?	jj—A	<<ц. ‘what, have
you caught cold?’. As a terminal enclitic it has various connotations.
Like -a, but more forceful, it may be a request for confirmation of
a suspicion: о падар-лаънат-хо-е! Буи мо расида-аст-чй? Т
...Ift,' . ...j L_o	J Iи . ‘Ah, the bastards!
Have they gotten wind of us, d’you think?’; a plea for guidance or
confirmation of a suggestion: мо хар руз телефон кунем-чй?
-  '•< j a I" jjj I______о ‘should we phone every day (or
what)?’; a polite suggestion: хамин вахт ба куча баромада,
як давр зада оем-чй? jjj Xj «аз—«xj-sj j _> « a
, .1 ‘since we’re out in the street already, let’s take a
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stroll, shall we?’; or a polite request: чой хурй-чй?
‘will you have tea?’ (the 2sg. verbs in the last two examples
are in the Present Subjunctive, as optatives; cf. 3.29).
канй A polite request, tantamount to a subdued imperative,
often includes this particle at the beginning or end; it may sup-
plement, or substitute for, a question word: канй, бачахо, кй ба
даре тайёр? < jLx-L jAj	‘well, children,
who is ready for class?’;додо, савготи-и ба ман овардаги-атон
канй?	j—<bh ‘Daddy, [may I
have] the present you brought back for me?’ (cf. 3.29; and for the
participle, 3.44).
4.9	Responses and Exclamations
A fair number of particles classed as interjections or expletives (i.e.,
they are mostly independent of the syntax of a sentence into which
they are inserted) are semantically linked to a response to an utterance,
action, or situation. They cannot readily be understood not merely
without the immediate sentence, but even without the preceding dialogue
(cf. Sentence adverbs, 4.10; exclamations making use of interrogatives
are exemplified under 2.35). Polysyllabic exclamations are stressed on
the initial syllable.
Affirmative replies. The commonest word for ‘yes’ (among other
meanings: see below) is x,a «ил. More specific is the affirmative бре
(_5jT ‘yes, indeed’: ope, хар ончи шумо гуфтед рост аст
zuml cl. j л j ~ I л Л, 4 ? ‘yes, everything you said is true’.
More literary is бале ‘yes’. Either of these words may follow ha
as confirmation: ха, бале, ман дар хамин фикр будам <4_л
j_i _><Ls j j n a j j j_a‘yes, I was just thinking the same thing’.
An interjection that commonly prefaces a practical reply, i.e. giving
or showing something to someone at their request, is мана! '4_L_a ‘here
(it is), here you are’: мана савготй _____cj ш 41» ‘here’s (your)
present’ (cf. ана 4_Ll, listed below).
Other affirmative replies are, for example: боло-и чашм
- A ‘willingly, for sure’ (lit. ‘upon [my] eye’, a caique on an Ar.
idiom; in response to a request); дандол басанда шуд? -Набошад-чй!
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297
!, ^a. j .S.I ।<? j-Д j Jl.‘was that enough ruckus (for you)?
—And how!’ (lit. ‘should it not be, what!’).
Negative replies: The usual word for ‘no’ is не (_fS: хануз нарасид?
-He S л > ...‘hasn’t she arrived yet? —No’. It may also
be used as a copula for any person (c. 3.6): ман/ мо (etc.) тодик не
I~ (etc.) I_о ‘I/ we (etc.) are not a Tajik/ not Tajiks’;
корхо-ям бад не д_> ^_jLa jl_£ ‘things are not bad (for me)’. The
more formal interjection на <l2> (identical with the verbal prefix) is
stylistically marked as archaic or theatrical.
More emphatic are асло yUol ‘absolutely (not)’:Ty хам pox меой?
-Асло yl uol- S	a I j- д-ft 3-З ‘are you coming along? —No
way’, or the contextually more restricted хеч g-jJb, lit. ‘nothing’: чй
гуфт? -Хеч g-j-л- Sd.lC «Ua.‘what did she say? —Nothing’.
Other responses. These interjections and enclitics occur in response,
not necessarily to a question or even an utterance, but to an action or
situation in the context. Polysyllables are stressed on the initial syllable.
(Synonyms are grouped.)
ана <_Ll ‘here (it) is/ here you have..’, when showing s.t. to s.o.: ана
ин хона-и мо; хо ана бог.............£(_> «Gl La fl—a	^1 4_J
‘this is our house; and here’s the garden...’; ана ин саволнома-ро
пур кунед л	I j <i_4 L JII <11 ‘fill out this applica-
tion form’; ана ин гап-и дигар! !yLj ё-J I ‘that’s more
like it/ so you’ve changed your tune!’ (‘here [is] another statement’);
ана халос! 4_Ll ‘that’s enough!’. (Cf. ho below, and mana
above, Affirmative replies.)
афсус a..j ... «I ‘alas, woe!’; also вой ^1 j, дарег jj , хайхот
ахсант -ё (Ar., ‘you did well’), colloq. ахсан	—ad: ‘well
said/ well done/ bravo!’; акоофарин yxxy з^>1-
адаб . Д У lit. ‘wonder’, expresses surprise: адаб, ту ин до чй
кор? S jl<^ L^- ф-d з-3 - f ‘hey, what are you doing here?’;
also, ox &Т,дахшат ej.7. a>j (‘surprise’).
адабо I /7 <- ‘(that’s) odd’: адабо, ман шунидам, ки вай рафта-аст
...14 bj 4_£ (».< .7 л, -I ? ? ‘funny! 1 heard that he’d
gone’ (see also vo).
бале (У-., exhortation, encouragement, or praise: бале, писарам,
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бале! !)_rL <ul_i ‘bravo, son, well done!’ (also ‘yes’; see
4.8).
бах(-бах) <—j-«<—-> or вах(-вах) оj-aj expresses enjoyment or
appreciation (of a performance, a meal, etc.): вах., ин хел хурок-и
бомаза! !e>j_oL JSI jjA JjS. 3./ ,t>j‘ah, such delicious food!’.
во I j expresses surprise or delight, often in combination with ajab(o):
во ач,аб(о)! ! I । ? r \._,^r Ij ‘amazing! How wonderful!’.
майлаш oid-j—a ‘as |you] like’: final consent: майлаш, кар кор
хох;й, кун jk .^l jl_£ jj, j n ‘OK, do whatever you
wish’; майл-аш, мон гирифта барад j* ".»jL  -
‘fine, let him take [it]’.
муборак (шавад) (jj-i)	jL-«, colloq. морак ijU, lit., ‘(may
the event be) blessed’: ‘congratulations!’
мужда! !6jj____a ‘good news! Eureka!’ (orig., the gratuity given to the
bringer of good news).
наход? S jjbl j-ks (colloq. and dial, naxo), surprise or disbelief: ‘really?
You don’t say!’ (from 3sg. Aorist of xostan, lit., ‘may [God] not
wish’; also as a precative auxiliary with a dependent subjunctive,
see 3.26-28, 4.17).
оббо L_d, expression of sympathy (for the addressee): оббо, ин
китоб-ро муфт аз даст додй! jl	^1 ,Li
‘оу, you gave away the book for nothing!’; sometimes with
disapproval for the actions of someone else: оббо, боз хамон
ках-и кудна-ро бод кард-а! jU Ijч 'iч_£ jl о_а jL 1LT
ibl-jj—S ‘uh-oh, he’s harping on the same old theme again’ (lit.
‘winnowed the same old chaff’). Variant: уббо LI.
oxo Lu expresses skepticism or sarcasm: oxo, муъдиза! Шумо маро
ба ин ду-се бех нихол-и пахта дар хайрат моноида
наметавонед jj	jj ju l-o a, \oj ул п <СаТ
j LlsaJiLLa cljj j -/oh yeah, a “miracle!” You can’t a-
maze me with two or three sprigs of cotton like this’.
садда-и сар-ат(он) (главам)! j_L) jljj-j	lit. ‘may
I be the alms of your head’, i.e., I would go bail/ sacrifice myself
for you: expression of gratitude or appreciation. More emphatic
variants include садда-и хок-и по-(я)т!	___i. S_____ua
!cjL\ ‘...of the dust of your foot’.
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299
туф « a-' and тфу j °' simulate spitting, and express disgust or scorn,
‘ugh! yuk!’.
уф <_sl ‘phew!’, expresses effort or discomfort, or relief after this,
yx al expresses scorn or satisfaction at another’s discomfiture: yx,
домулло-и содда! Ujl____________________dj «al ‘serves you right, you
simpleton of a mullo!’; it may also express surprise or fright.
хайр j_lA, lit. ‘well’ (Ar.): хайр, чй ran шуда-аст? <t_a. <
S! bxi‘well now, what’s up?’
хизмат, pane! _> ‘yessir!’ (‘(at your] service...’),
хуб ‘good, well’: agreement, sometimes provisional with a nudge
to continue: хуб, баъд чй мешавад? S jj м. _i « «t-а. j_*_> <«_j
‘fine, what happens next?’.
xa <ua (cf. above, Affirmative replies): sudden recollection: ха, кариб
буд, аз ёд-ам барорам f jTj-j jl jj-j —2 <<-* ‘oh, I
nearly forgot’; excitement or anger: ха, но-ахл, но-асил! <<ил
J ..^11 \ < JjJLl ‘ah, you bastard, you scum!’
хдлол-ат(он) бод! !jL	, lit. ‘may it be lawful for
you’, praise or congratulations: ‘bravo, good for you, well done!’,
хай-хай!	‘oh dear!’, a mild remonstration, chiding and
fingerwagging in tone (serious or ironic): хай-хай! Ин кор-ат
нагз не, Талабшох <>1 * I U j—jl—£ J-J
‘Tsk-tsk/ tut-tut, that wasn’t a nice thing to do, Talabshoh!’.
эх £—11 expresses disgust or disappointment: эх, одамон чидадар
тез аз худ мераванд зЛjl j-тР j^-Ц- d*—‘ёе'
‘huh, how quickly people change!’.
э ^1 expresses frustration or annoyance: э, чог-ам дар гур! Ман чй
Гуфта ИСТОДа-аМ ^»l	"  _<! 4 ~ И «La. J-o ! jj t(jl
‘oh, damn this jaw of mine! What am I saying?’ (lit. ‘my jaw in
the grave’).
Other short, non-lexical interjections (such as o, oh, e, and ey) have a
variety of meanings, and may be reduplicated or cumulated with others
for different effects.
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4.10	Sentence Adverbs and Enclitics
The following adverbials have much in common with the interjections
noted above. However, they may be distinguished in that they are not
necessarily exclamatory in nature (and are therefore not usually stressed
on the first syllable), and may be placed in other than initial position,
инак (orig. ‘behold’): introduces a logical inference or summing
up of what preceded,‘hence, thus’: инак, аз фуровард-и аср-и
X моликият-и Сомониён фак,ат Мовароунахр монда буд-у
баС In fl.-.fl J I i j 1_д I	11 a jl \ • j < r	jl J
i 3 1 b Xj I—a j. g '1 I1 11 j J La ‘hence, by the latter part of the
tenth century, of the patrimony of the Samanids there remained
only the Oxus Basin’.
охир j-LT, lit. ‘(at) last, final(ly)’: objection or protest: охир, шумо
Хама хамкорон, ман бетона j_a < J I j IX	<u_o_a I «
<ULS-±-i ‘but you are all colleagues, I’m an outsider’; охир, бача-и
бечора чй кор кунад? ? LX jLX «La. ь J ? _>  Lj < jLT ‘any-
way, what can the poor child do?’. Combined for greater emphasis
with an enclitic (see below): охир намебидед, хозир обру-и
шумо аз обру-и ман баландтар-ку! .>>1 п. .,»	jLl
!csjj-jT jl I n Л ‘but don’t you see, your
status is now greater than mine!’; шумо, охир, гуш намекардед
j_jj< j-AT < L_‘but you weren’t listening, were
you!’.
хай jj-a as an initial interjection, either before a pause or as a prosodic
(and thus a syntactic) unit with what follows, voices approval:
Хай(,) иморат-и хуб сохта-анд! clXL j-A оjL c (<)u-a
!L>I ‘wow, they’ve put up a good building/ what a good building
they’ve put up!’; before a VP it is an intensive adverb, ‘well and
truly, thoroughly’: хай шух-у дилрабо менавохтй!
! "> a.I‘how merrily and delightfully you played!’;
Рахим-и К,анд-и бечора-ро хай пахш мекарданд, хай
мекуфранд! < aSjn JiL ст4 1	? J ?	f _»
bjX	‘they laid into poor Rahim Qand with gusto and gave
him a thorough beating/ oh, how they laid into...!’
Hay also functions as an initial interjection to alert or summon
SYNTAX
301
someone: ‘hey! listen!’; and, in conjunction with such as дарег
(4.9, see afsiis), as an exclamation of woe (cf. hay-hay!
4.9)	.
Adverbial enclitics. Apart from -a, karii, and ci (3.29, 4.8), there are
other particles, attached to the VP or another sentence constituent,
which modify the tone of the utterance. These are written with a hyphen
in Cyrillic.
-да adds a note of amazement or admiration, genuine or ironic:
рацс-аш-ро бинед-да!	i'ii.i I	‘wow, look at
him dance!’; духтархо-и калон-да! хазор-та ашула медонед
,<	<d j_jil L3 jlj-л Uj-jyL-S cgLbj ~ Aj ‘big girls like
you—you know a thousand songs!’ (mock-reproachful, in order
to elicit a performance). After an imperative, it palliates a blunt
request: ин кор-ро худатон кунед-да jLijj_______=. Ijjl_S
‘couldn’t you do it yourself?’.
-дия 4____>_uj- is an emphatic enclitic with a range of connotations,
expressing either solidarity with the listener or, conversely, a note
of irony or challenge: дил-и одам хамин хел-дия! Jj
!4__>_>j J  a j j a &‘isn’t that just the way of the human heart!’;
инхо хам дев ё а чина буда-анд-дия L I q'iJ
4___i_ij j-J ьjj_> ‘oh, they were demons and jinnees, right enough’;
шинед-дия! !4_±jj л л. ‘sit down, will you?’.
-e 6- is emphatic or asseverative, often like an English tag-question:
хайрият дидам-ат-е!	cu-jj j A. ‘a good thing I saw
you, isn’t it?’.
-ку expresses righteous indignation: об-ро кушо! -Нав кушо-
да будам-ку! !< j-j— !1	< I Л ‘turn on the
water! — But I just did, didn’t I?’; мадлис як-у-ним соат пештар
тамом шуда буд-ку? j ~ Л. j j cluxL-l*. j .S-t »
S j-> м л, ‘what! (you mean) the meeting finished an hour
and a half ago?’. Usually -ku modifies the whole sentence, but
may attach to a particular constituent to contrast it with another:
цадидхо-ро-ку кофир мегуянд, шумо-ро чй шуд, ки бо
онхо хамрох шудед? «La. IjL^i <
<? ftlj a a» L$_lT L 4_S «j-Л. ‘they call the Jadids1 unbelievers;
1 The liberal reformists of the pre-revolutionary Bukhara emirate.
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how come you joined them?’ (‘what happened to you that..?’).
-куя expresses confirmation or reassurance: холо ин кадар
бевакд не-куя	jjJ	‘it really isn’t
too late’; кайф-и хуб дорад-куя!	 «_< ‘this
is really fun!’. It may imply mutual trust, or signal an attempt at
persuasion: шумо ба одамон-и амир бисьёр душман шуда
мондед-куя аз- Л --------Дз jl > J—J_______ol jl_o3L-> I А Л.
«и^-зизДЬо ‘now, you turned against the emir’s minions, didn’t
you?’.
THE COMPLEX SENTENCE
4.11	Coordinate Conjuncts: 'and’
The principal conjunctions used to coordinate words, phrases (NPs,
both iwfat and numerical; VPs, and others), and sentences, with the
basic meaning ‘and’, are the independent ва j and the enclitic -y j.
After a vowel, the enclitic has the variants -ю/ -ву in Cyrillic; in
Perso-Arabic script, the independent va and the enclitic, however
pronounced, are invariable in written form.
The two variants of the enclitic, -yu and -vu, which in Cyrillic (and
before it in Latin) orthography represent two different pronunciations
after a vowel, are not in totally free distribution. If a word ends
definitively, or optionally, in the semi-vowel /у/ (as with чой
‘tea’, буй ‘odor, fragrance’, по(й) ‘foot’, донишчу(й)
_______=>—ш!з ‘student’), the linked form is y+u, which is written in
Cyrillic with the single character ю (replacing й) and in Perso-Arabic
with final and j. чою к;анд зДЗ j ‘tea and (lump) sugar’, бую
ранг uS j  j ‘fragrance and color’, донишцую устод
з! ~i ...I j	? Л.‘|1з ‘student and professor’. After words ending in a
front vowel l\l or /е/, the principle of least effort in pronunciation
favors the linking form -yu, and after back vowels Zu/ or /о/ and the
low front vowel /а/, the form -vu. This is not necessarily followed in
Cyrillic: both forms do occur after any final vowel, as the following
examples attest.
SYNTAX
303
High and mid front vowels: се-ю ним । ~i j <______ш ‘three and a
half’; си-ю як/ си-ву як l£_j j ‘thirty-one’, иктисоди-ю
ич,ти-мой л Л-чI j »l ‘economic and social’, чй гуфти-ю
вай чй гуфт о. а ‘Ч-зз J о~‘ ‘what you said and what he
said’, шармандаги-ю расвой j_________j j_____________i ‘shame and
disgrace’; бозсози-ву фопюфошгуй	ll_il_i
‘reconstruction and openness’ (i.e., perestroika and glasnost’),
дуруяги-ву дуруггуй	j	jjjj‘two-facedness and
lying’, на ту мемурди-ву на ман ф-о «С j ^дyi ‘neither
you nor I would die’.
Back vowels: зардолу-ю ангур jj-S-il j jJTjjJ ‘apricots and
grapes’, ду-ю аз дах панч ьд JI j ^д ‘two point five’; мо-ву
шумо I - л, j U ‘we and you’, бобо-ву падар _,д_> j L>L> ‘grandfa-
ther and father’, ту кудо-ву ин до кудо? s I <. I ? у I j I > ‘S у;
‘what are you doing here?’ (see 4.7); талабахо-ю студентхо La
1аси2>дj '  j ‘schoolchildren and university students’; лола-ву рай-
хон jLa-jэ j ‘tulip(s) and sweet basil’.
Low front vowel: хонанда-ву нависанда t.i 'i... j ьдДД1 j—i
‘reader and writer’, хона-ву до L^. j <L>LJ>. ‘house and home’; кор-
хона-ю завод д^у j __________Ijl___£ ‘factory and plant’, Ануша-ю
додархояш □д1д j <uiy>l ‘Anusha and her brothers’.
The mid central vowel /и/ (written y; see 1.3) is confined to Northern
dialects, and the MLT written form seldom occurs in final position
before -u; oral evidence suggests that the usual combining form is
/йуи/.
If a stylistic generalization can be made, it is that -yu was favored
in the earlier period of MLT {-vu is not officially recognized in the
Tajik-Russian dictionary of 1954), but -vu has since increased in
frequency and is now considered the more “correct” form after a back
or low front vowel {a, o, u). Certain conjoined expressions have come
to use one or the other exclusively, and different writers have their
own preferences.
Words closely conjoined to form lexical items may be written in
Cyrillic as a single word, and in Perso-Arabic without vov у гуфтугу(й)
(ирз*'"1 ° ‘conversation’ (the latter practice was followed even in
compound numerals in some early Soviet-period writing: \^д
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jj c^L^ ibist u du ‘twenty-two’ (see 1.14, 2.49-50).
As noted above, when the Perso-Arabic script does show this syllable
it uses the same character in every case (see 1.14: Arabic orthography
is underdetermined, Cyrillic overdetermined). Tajik (or other Persian-
speaking) readers of a Perso-Arabic text must therefore choose which
of several interpretations to enunciate (though the phonetic criteria and
results will not always be the same in SP and Tajik); and their choices
might not coincide with that of the writer or editor of a Cyrillic text.
Syntactically, va and -u (etc.) are in fairly free distribution. Va
does not form a prosodic unit with either of its conjuncts, thus affording
punctuation between distinct elements whether sentences, phrases, or
words. The enclitic joins elements that are thought of as a single idea:
this may include adjacent sentences, as well as subordinate phrases
within them. Conversely, va may conjoin words or phrases, in order to
give each a separate importance, even when -u is also used to join
superordinate sentences. Examples:
Sentences: va, etc., signal a second action contemporaneous with or
closely following the first, or a consequence of it: даво абрнок
шуд ва борон cap шуд д-Д j_uu jl jl_> j д-i jjl I‘the
sky clouded over and the rain started’; ин сухан-и талх-аш-ро
гуфт ва аз хона баромада рафт J о.а < I j (jt, \ IЛ	...
j ад___alj_> <i_jl_i. jl ‘he said these bitter words and left the
room’; «киш» гуфтам^у чумчуд ба даво парвоз карда рафт
cui j	jl jj-i Ij_0_> (jj-a-oj-a- j fAiS ‘I shouted “kish”
and the sparrow flew up into the air’ (an immediate consequence);
{аввал чанд руз даво гарм шуд}^ {шамол-и сахт ва
хунук чанг-и куча-до-ро ба осмон бардошт} jjj Jjl}
(j I о иtLj I jLa	\ -k < £ \ -k j . -1 ... J | ft ,7>} j { Д-Ju
{-. ,7.1'j ‘for the first few days the weather turned warm and a
brisk, [and] cool wind blew the dust of the streets high into the
air’ (sentences joined with -u, adjectives with va); {аз галаба-и
индилоб-и Бухоро {дафта-ю мод-до} гузашта-анд}-у {вай
дануз {ягон давли-ю хона-и дуруст} надорад} Ъ____________j_Lc jl}
(jl£j] jj-i-л (_sj) j {cjjjjI	{La aLe ~а д>] I jLLj <_j}LU
{jjljJ> {<—' '-j ' з t J ‘since the triumph of the revolution
in Bukhara weeks and months have passed, and he still has no
SYNTAX
305
proper house or lodging’ (sentences, and both embedded phrases,
are joined with -u).
Verb Phrases: мо мехнат мекардем^у ним-гурусна будем I_____________о
j л .xj \ n ‘we did the labor and were
on half-rations’ (conjoined VPs after the same subject).
NPs andWords: {хама дар андеша} ва {хама дар {фикр ва
мулохиза}} {{<ck^.yU> j jj j {<ui_j.ilI <lla] ‘all
(deep) in contemplation, all (sunk) in thought and reflection’ (va
joins both superordinate and subordinate phrases); зиёфат-и мард-
и дехкон {харбуза, тарбуз ва {сабзи-ю пиёз}} аст .-.Я  >-
' ml I ।j j	j1 <1 з	<ь -<• (jI о йj	the peasant s
banquet is melon, watermelon, and greens and onions’ (super-
ordinate phrases joined with va, subordinate phrases with -u);
рафт-у-омад-и Самарканд j.\ «j n m <J j cu-s j ‘the round
trip to Samarkand’; хуб, олам-у одам-и бисьёр-ро дида омад-
етон-мй? jlld-jj-aT ад-jj Ijjl _i ! _i i j ^JLc. «i-jj-^.
‘Well, have you seen a lot of the world (and its people)?’ (conjoined
words, each originally the head of a separate izofat NP, forming
virtually a new lexical unit).
Phrases and, especially, sentences may follow one another (especially
in description or narrative) without a conjunction: вахт сахаргохон
буд, тамом-и биёбон-ро хомушй фаро гирифта буд 3
4 Т	1^—я	oL_1. IjjjLaI—i—i^l л" 1	—L*i‘it was
morning; silence encompassed the whole steppe’. Even consequential
clauses, which in English demand at least ‘and’, may follow without a
conjunction: дар ин до кариб борон наборид, замин замин тез
хушк шудан гирифт	<>J <л-Jjl—G jljU
(jj—i I < >7, -4 ‘ here it hardly rained at all, (and) the earth soon
started to dry up’.
Such paratactic linkage may be reinforced by adverbs, in particular
хам f-л ‘also; reciprocally’ (cf. 2.47) and инчунин jj'i^‘i_i I‘likewise’
(cf. 2.31): бачагон омаданд, бедонабозй хам cap шуд ।
dui j_m jUb ^Lulu-i ‘the boys came, and the quail-fighting
began’ (ham as second constituent of the clause); гайр аз данговарон,
ба ин до инчунин занон-у мардон, пир-у давонон, бача-ю
кача-хо омаданд j jUj j I	JI j—j—1
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CHAPTER FOUR
jSj_oT 1_Л4 j 4_a_i «jLIJ-?- J j-ft* ‘d'Jj-° ‘apart from warriors,
here came likewise women and men, old and young, children and
youngsters’ (note, too, the ellipsis of the plural suffix in the last two
conjuncts).
As a “conjunction-substitute,” х,ам is often reciprocal or
contrastive in sense—it marks an extra point of focus: дарбон
гур-гуркунон аз до бархоста дарвоза- ро кушод, ман хам як
ох-е сабук кашиддам-у ба куча тохтам L. jl jLlS jLjjj
4-a.j^ j э	1 j 111	—1	*jI—I j 6 jljjj 4 “ < j-»
^LL.L3 ‘the porter got up grumbling from his seat and opened the gate,
and I (for my part) heaved a gentle sigh and dashed into the street’.
4.12	Disjunctive Conjuncts
Coordinate phrases and sentences expressing alternatives (‘or’) are
conjoined in ways similar to those linked with ‘and’. There are, however,
some differences of usage among the conjunctions ё U, ваё Lj, ё
худ jjA L, ё ки d L, and ё ин ки <i L>.
ё L ‘or’ is the most widely applicable, usually denoting a pair (or
more) of variants rather than clear-cut alternatives: имруз ё пагох,
бошад, парво надо рад jjljs I jj_j ЛЬ ь IX_> U jjj—J ‘[be
it] today or tomorrow, it doesn’t matter’ (alternate NPs); ки-хр
ба он чой-х,о рафта-анд ё... онхо-ро ном ба ном медонанд?
S л ‘i 11j(_у° ^Ll_> ^L I jI____$LT ...Lu jjl4__L__lj La^I___Zk (ji_i 1_Л(_^£
‘who [pl.] have been to those places or know them all by name?’
(alternative VPs); аз Ч,омй, ё аз Хрфиз, ё аз Саъдй гуфта
давоб медодам jua. 4JX1S jl L .L_iL. jl L> jl
^jlj(_j-o ‘I replied with quotations from Jami, (from) Hafiz or
(from) Sa'di (as appropriate)’ (alternative prepositional phrases).
ваё Lj ‘or rather’ offers a clear alternative: ман хамин китоб-ро
биёрам, ваё он як-е-ро? jT Lj jl J .	-| S (j_J—<iA (j—a
S I j(_/L ‘shall I bring this book, or that one?’; it is often used in
parallel with initial yo (see below).
ё худ jjA L ‘or indeed’ punctuates the alternatives if they are lengthy,
or marks the second one as an afterthought or a new idea: маълум
набуд, ки у фикрхо-и Алидон-ро маъкул ёфта cap ме-
SYNTAX
307
чунбонед, ё худ ба ягон андеша-и дигар банд аст jl< >
J-p I I \ -ч J-UJ 4_u_aL J J 8 « n IJ (jLa.^jlx	jl <£ j j j *.
eu-uJ j_xj jLj LuLud^l jK-iu JЦ? was not c'ear whether
he was nodding his head because he approved of Alijon’s ideas or
if his thoughts were somewhere else entirely’.
ё ки 4_£ U introduces only a VP or clause (as does its extension, yo
in-kl), and generally expresses a clear-cut alternative: ман ба
назд-и шумо равам, ё ки шумо ба назд-и ман биёед-у як
квартира-ро холй ди\ем jjAu I - <<, L I * л,
^La. ' j 6>тйj'‘A? 3 j-auLxu d-° ‘I should go and stay
with you, or else you can come to stay with me and we will
provide a room’.
ё ин ки < •>..! I\4__£ j_al Lu links alternative explanations in complete
sentences: асп-и шумо бе наъл аст, ё ин ки наъл-аш кухна
4	< от. I * ‘1 <l£_LuI Lu .cljuuJ JaJi I n Л. xj ‘(either) your
horse has lost a shoe, or (else) its shoe [is] old’ (‘...or [it is] this,
that...’; the impersonal demonstrative is a Sentential pronoun,
anticipating the sentence to come; cf. 4.15, Complementizer fa).
In some weakly contrasted phrases, English ‘or’ is equivalent to Tajik
ва/ -у j ‘and’: оянда-ву раванда-гон-ро намедид j * ' -T
xuj^^ux-j I j jjl_S_i_jjj ‘he did not see those (who were) coming or
leaving’; аз он до баромадан ва на-баромадан-ашон ба ихтиёр-и
шумо мешавад I л Л, j1 ~ АI . jl Л, ~ij <j j jx-aTj-i I ~-T jl
jj Л. j__a ‘whether they get out of there or not will be up to you’ (a
Turkic-style sentential complement nominalized with infinitives; 4.15).
Two restricted conditional idioms introduce a potential or counter-
factual alternative, ‘otherwise, or else’: ман пир шудам, вагарна
худам хам мекучидам	4-Lj	(j_a
‘I have grown old, otherwise I myself would move on’ (‘and if not’, a
shortened form of va agar na)\ хайрият омадй, писарам, на-бошад
пиёда ба Когон сурог кард мерафтам	аТ _> А
»aj^j-a	оLSL£ 4_> 6jLuu j Л.1 j"i ‘a good thing you came,
son, or else I would have gone to Kogon on foot in search of you’ (lit.
‘...be it not’, Present Subjunctive). An adverbial phrase is also available:
дар акс-и хол JLa.	‘otherwise’ (lit. ‘in the opposite case’).
Here, only the second clause uses the Conditional tense (4.36).
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4.13	Parallel Conjuncts
The following conjunctions (strictly, adverbs) are used in pairs to
coordinate homogeneous NPs, VPs, or sentences.
\ам... [ва]хам....•f-4> ‘both... and...’: хам шофёр буд-у
Хам каровул Jjlj_5	j	‘there was both a
driver and an escort’ (note enclitic -yj, the second verb is gapped);
мо ин-ро нагз медидем ва дар хама чо: дар куча хам, дар
хобгох хам, дар мачлис хам месурудем	1_о
I n <^-A й I > I j)	:La. 4—o_A	J ij-ij
jj f—a ‘we enjoyed this, and so we would sing every-
where—alike in the street, in the dormitory, at meetings’ (ham is
here in its usual adverbial position, after the phrase on which
focus is to be directed; cf. 2.47).
чи... чи.....4^. -•‘L^. ‘both... and..., whether... or...’: хама уро ме-
шиносанд, чи калон-у чи хурд < j Ц,1 Ijjl 4______________
jj__<1^. j _____S ‘they all know him, both old and young’; чи
медонад, чи намедонад, фарк, чй?	<La.	<ц.
Jj a ‘whether he knows or doesn’t (know), what’s the
difference?’. Note that this conjunction is the unstressed particle
чи <La. (as in xap чи «l^-j-а ‘whatever’, 2.42), not the stressed
pronoun чй (j-a-X <e- ‘what’ (2.34,4.8).
ё... (ва)ё...-Ц? ‘either... or...’: ё бояд корро хобонем, ё
асбоб-и нав дихед j_xAj o_.Li-.ul L «j^LJL
‘either give us new tools, or we’ll have to stop work’ (the Tajik
clauses are in the reverse order). The second conjunction may be
reinforced with any of the variants listed above, e.g., китобхо-и
кухна хастанд, лекин онхо ё дастрас-и мо набуданд, ё ки
мо холо онхо-ро хонда наметавонистем 4	< ^Lau-J т <,
lj д ‘Т Lx I_о L	L_o j ~ < nJ L 1 J 1 1 ш Д
р ' -Jthere are old-style books, but either they
would not be available to us, or we would not be able to read
them now’.
xox-.. xox...*1 >А...б1	‘whether... or...’: хох ба Москва равй,
хох ба Фаргона, хона-и худ-ат <_> JjA	» «и oIjS.
SULL	‘whether you go to Moscow or to Ferghana,
SYNTAX
309
you’ll find hospitality’ (‘[my] house is yours’).
rox(o/-e)... rox(o/-e)..........^-XL-XaLS ‘now... now...,
sometimes... sometimes, at one time... at another...’: у сар-ашро
чунбонида, гохо ба ин тараф менигарист-у гохо ба он
тараф j <~11и	। Sj_lo	>L।	—£ *аа—uLl * '*I j LL*  jl
u_s j_L jL ‘he nodded his head, looking now this way, now
that’ (goh, goho, or gohe is repeated in the same form).
на... на... *; ...*; ‘neither... nor...’: ба ин когаз на даст-и ту расад,
на даст-и ман < ' «L ...j jJS <L j_>U ‘let
neither my hand nor yours touch this paper’ (conjoined NPs); на
хурок мепазам, на хона-ро мерубам <L .^jj^ u£l <L
jk_i j j lj-o I j ‘I neither cook the meals nor (do I) sweep the
house’ (conjoined VPs).
4.14	Adversative Conjuncts
The conjunctions аммо Lol, лёкин	j I, and the more literary вёле
j, ‘but’ introduce the second of two contrasted VPs or clauses:
хеле Давидам, лекин ба мардак нарасидам I ^1 > А
ran hard, but didn’t catch up with the guy’ (conjoin-
ed VPs with the same subject); хаво абр шуд, аммо борон на-борид
x->jL_G jl j(_> Lol j_il Ijjb ‘it became cloudy, but it didn’t rain’;
ман-ку боз гурехта халос мешавам, лекин ту дар хабсхона-хо
пусида меравй	I	ГА jl_> j_£-j_o
j o aj _i 3^ L*<Ll 4 ‘As for me, I’ll escape again and get
away, but you will rot in prison’ (for -ku, see 4.10). Except for vale
(which begins with va, being a shortened form of va-lekiri), these
conjunctions may be prefaced with va! -u ‘and’, esp. before a change
of subject: Самимбой аз цо-яш хестанй шуда харакат кард-у
аммо Пул од на-монд	aa_i о \Т _ < jjLiL. jl tgLoi «
з-iL'i	L ol j ‘Samim-boy made to get up, but Pulod had
already gone’.
Poetical variants of these words are лек LLJ and валек ALJ j.
A frequently-used idiom with the Subjunctive бошад a__iL ‘[if/
let] it be’ (see 3.7) contrasts two NP subjects by briefly isolating that
of the second sentence in an embedded conditional clause of the form:
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(va) NP2 bos[ad], lit. ‘[if] it be NP2 [we are talking about]’, i.e., ‘as for
NP2’: хама ба кино рафтанд; у бошад, дар хона монд 4_______«_а
jJ>Lo <sLk jj «д-LL jl !,ГГ| a j j ‘everyone went to the movies;
as for him, he stayed home’; мо мехнат мекардем.., бойхо бошанд,
пойдароз нишаста батрак кор мефармуданд	I___а
jl—_j-j а—т ш—ii_.1	<л 11 ul i La^$1—1 * f	u>л
jSj‘we toiled... whereas the rich men sprawled there ordering
us around’; занхо аз гирья худдорй натавонистанд, мардон
бошанд, мушт-ашон-ро гирех карда... базур рост меистоданд
। J	л ‘У~х^»Ц1 jbj-a <,GTni*Jj-S-j (_gjbjjA 4-jj^ jI
jJijI ~i...jIitj-uu! j	‘the women could not help weep-
ing, while the men clenched their fists... and could hardly stand still’.
The same sense is expressed by the conjunction (ва) хол онки
J La. (j) ‘while, whereas’, which can also contrast two different
actions of the same agent: аз писарон-аш хабар-е нашуд, (ва) хол
онки... бояд хафта-и гузашта меомаданд ; A	jl
<tт и,,'Lua jjL JL>. (j) <ал;, ‘there was no news
of his sons, where- as they should have come the week before’ (properly
a subordinating conjunction; cf. 4.32).
A strong contrast between the actions in two VPs is expressed by
negating the first, and introducing the second with балки 4 <1 . ‘but
rather’: Бекназар духтар-аш-ро ба давон-и дилбаста-и у не,
балки ба кас-и дигар ба шавхар додан мехоста-аст j L \	.
j-Aj । 'J i 4^1 1 <f jl 4 " in t (JJ
itj-uuI 4 " Ц.1 ‘Beknazar, it seems, wanted to give his daughter in
marriage not to the youth who had set his heart on her, but to someone
else’; Ахмад-Махдум ба нучум... на ба сифат-и астроном,
балки ба сифат-и астролог машгул шуда буда-аст j_______о___а.1
~ “'I	1L ьа j 4-SLL <^jJ>j ~ ...I е-| » -Д ; 4-1    J >	л
-^l	6 j-Л Jj i ш. n ‘Ahmad Makhdum concerned himself with
the stars... not as an astronomer, but as an astrologer’. In shorter
sentences, the contrast may be obtained without balkv. мархамат, як
пиёла не, як коса об нушед 4_^I_S	«:,« ->j_a
л.jj>	‘please, drink a (whole) bowl of water, not (just) a cup’.
The addition in the first phrase or clause of танхо I 4 1" or факат
La a ‘only’ (2.47), often reinforced by ^_a ‘also’, generates a cumulat-
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311
ive contrast: на танхо ман, балки духтар-ам хам уро дид <l_l
jjj I jjl f <t£L <(>0 Ц Ti ‘not only I, but my daughter too
saw him’; на танхо падар-аш лат дод ва на фадат ахл-и
оила-ашон хафа шуд, балки тамом-и колхозчиён хам афсус
хурданд <j_4> <12 jLilM-LLc Jj>l kJLs <ь j Jj Ы	<ь
u-Ы	«iS-ILinot only did his father
beat (him) and [not only did] his family get upset, but all the collective
farmworkers were sorry too’.
4.15 Sentential Complements (1): Ground Rules
Actions, states, and scenarios, whether actual or potential, are routinely
perceived, experienced, reported, evaluated, or imagined, by sentient
beings. There are two principal strategies for expressing the grammatical
relationship between the observer, or reporter, and the activity or
experience in question. One is to nominalize the activity, etc. (which
in its ‘raw’ or unreported state would be depicted largely through
finite verbs), whereupon it becomes the NP complement in a single
sentence centered on the observer-reporter: ‘I reported my stay in the
hospital’ or ‘the boy was afraid of going/ to go home’ (object
complement), ‘the damage caused by the storm was evident’ or ‘to
bell/ belling the cat proved impossible’ (subject complement). The
other strategy is to leave the scene or experience in finite verbal form,
signaling its status as a separate, dependent, sentence by a com-
plementizer: ‘I told them (that) I had been in the hospital’, ‘it was
evident that the storm had caused some damage’, etc. Like English,
most major languages can do both, within limits, but tend to favor one
stratagem over the other for everyday communication.
Tajik is capable of both, and employs both stratagems in different
stylistic registers with equal facility and complexity. The single-sentence
approach is often illustrated incidentally in Chapters 2 and 3 of this
work, since it is an immediate vehicle of much nominal and verbal
morphology. The dependent-sentence (two-clause) stratagem will be
exemplified at several points in the present chapter, as an aspect of
Tajik sentence syntax. However, the single-sentence semantic equivalent
of such constructions will be noted where available, here under the
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rubric of Sentential Complements and at other pertinent sections, such
as Reporting Speech and Relative Clauses. The single-sentence
stratagem will be referred to in shorthand as “Turkic style,” and the
two-clause stratagem as “Persian style.”
Persian Style: Complementizer ки This unstressed monosyllable
has the sole purpose of marking the onset of a subordinate clause,
usually at the beginning, but sometimes as the second constituent
(4.39—40). The purport of the clause emerges from other factors: the
form or sense of the main clause, the tense and mood of the subordinate
verb, the presence of question particles, anaphoric pronouns (in a Relative
clause), or specific prepositions and conjunctions. Ki may be omitted
if the context is clear (e.g., the subject of both clauses is the same):
мехохдм (ки) х;амрох равам jj J j-a-л (<£)	‘I want to
come along’ (4.23); хайрият, (ки) омади —Л (<t_5)	_> A.
‘(it’s) a good thing (that) you came’.
“Sentential” pronouns. Certain verbs and expressions likely to appear
in the main clause, especially those followed by a preposition (‘to talk
about/ complain of/ boast about the fact that...’, etc.), require a “Sentential
pronoun,” (хам)ин » a>\ or (х,ам)он jl_^\ jl, as a prop for
the preposition and/ or an immediate complement of the main clause,
referring forward to the sentential complement (cf. yo in ki, 4.12):
Зайнаб... шод буд аз он, ки вай бо Мухтор дар як кор...
шарик аст jl_S <-£_j jj jl "i Ч л L ^1 jl jLi ...<_хД^5
...I	___Д ‘Zaynab was happy to be a partner in an activity with
Mukhtor’ (‘...happy from that [i.e., the fact] that she is a partner...’).
This antecedent of ki may follow the main verb, as here, or remain
embedded in the main clause: аз хислат-х;о-яш ин аст, ки... jl
<1 <	...I	.1 a>.I < ‘one of his /among his good points is
[this,] that...’; хулоса-и хабар... иборат аз ин буд, ки амир... аз
[консул-и Россия] маслихдт пурсида-аст	...j-aA
l~ I   I 1 "'J 1 1—I I ‘X n |\ j ‘•"JJ J J 1 11 	j' -J J-0 I *1^ ‘Jj-J (j-jl jl
‘the gist of the matter was [as follows,] that the emir... had asked the
Russian consul’s advice’ (...consisted of this, that...’); this word order,
too, may vary: баён-и водеа аз ин иборат буда-аст, ки... jL_
...«i_S <-, ...1<‘jl  < (j-J jl <j-xIj ‘the incident apparently went
as follows’ (‘the description of the incident consists [Non-Witnessed]
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313
in this, that...’; for iborat az, see 2.19).
Sentential pronouns with ki-complements are frequently found after
prepositions or prepositional phrases meaning ‘about, concerning’, when
the topic is too long and grammatically involved simply to embed as
an Infinitive phrase (see below): Сафар... дар бора-и ин ки {пас
аз хамин дадар мох-у сол ба Зебй дил бастан} одибат имруз
фиреб хурда-аст... фикр мекард jl	J-jI «>jL> jj ...э t
a	о i aL-c. {(j.T ,,m_i Jj	<L_» Jl—ьи j 61—л jj-S Ja
jj<  a .-^1 ‘Safar... thought about how, after so many
months and years of wooing Zebi, today he had been deceived’ (the
complement even includes an embedded Infinitive phrase). This device
is particularly frequent in complements of reason, result, purpose, and
quality (see below).
If the antecedent does not involve a preposition, the Sentential
pronoun may be omitted: долиб-и диддат (ин) аст, ки дар чунин
думладо 1_л 4_1_а—a. J	jj <t—$ ! (j-d) CLbij u-Jl—a. ‘it is
noteworthy that in sentences such as this...’.
Turkic-style: Complement nominalization. In this formulation, the
finite VP expressing the action becomes a NP in the form of the
corresponding Infinitive, together with its attendant subject and object,
prepositional phrases, and other adverbials, to the extent needed: у аз
дахР чй гуфтан-аш-ро намедонад I j \"i ...а—$ <_а. j $ a jl jl
j-Jj^jiJi'she is speechless with indignation/ so furious that she does
not know what to say’ (‘from indignation she does not know her-
saying-what’). As a noun in other than subject or object position this
whole phrase is linked to its antecedent by a preposition or izofat- ман
{барои {ба даст даровардан-и касе}} омада будам
6j_oT	' } ‘1 came in order to catch some-
body’ (‘...for [the purpose of] to-hand-bringing...’; the juxtaposition of
two prepositions here is coincidental, owing to the use of a prepositional
phrase in the VP. Cf. Purpose clauses, 4.40).
In a multi-clause sentence, such nominalization may be combined
with Persian-style fa-complementizing: боис-и {ин дадар дур-у дароз
давоб кофтан-и у} хамин буда-аст, ки {фамилия-и зан-у шавхар
дигар-дигар буд} {jl а(_£ Jljj j jjj J] o-cL
j ij jJbj; i~i J J j J I J al—ij *1—«"' ml J л the
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reason why {he went into such an involved rigmarole of an answer}
turned out to be that {husband and wife had different surnames}’.
Adverbial adjuncts and components of the verb, if Complex or
Composite, precede the Infinitive (see foregoing examples); a noun or
pronoun designating subject and/ or object follow it: «вали» набудани
падари худ-ро ме-донистам	IjэУ? JAj г'1 j
‘1 knew that my father was not a saint’ (‘...my father’s not-being a
saint’) ; Хасан барои зада натавонистан-аш он мург-и шум-ро
афсус хурда...	f jT	*jj
... bjjj-J- j ,al ‘Hasan regretted (his) not having been able to hit
that ill-omened bird, and...’. (Note that only the sense of the main verb
determines that of haroi, as between ‘with the purpose of’ and ‘for the
sake of’.)
Such embedded NPs, which may be quite long, constitute a syntactic
and prosodic unit; they are usually delivered without internal pause
and with an even intonation, the voice rising only on the last (stressed)
syllable of the unit.
Persian style: Subordinate verbs, Subjunctives. Sentential com-
plements of verbs of intellection and perception (to know/ be known,
see, remember...), confirming (or denying) an actual event or state in
the past or present, generally have their verb in the Indicative: дуруст
аст, ки ту х;ануз давен х,астй jlj___a. jj д» у; <_£	...I	...jj
ц ... a ‘it’s true that you are still young’ (Turkic style: х,ануз давен
будан-и ту дуруст аст cu-eJ clw-jj yi jj I jyut). “Indica-
tive” may of course include a Non-Witnessed tense, if the information
is gained by hearsay or inference: маълум шуд, ки х;авли-и у
нисбат ба х;авли-и ман аз туйхона дуртар буда-аст j Л. »
iTu-uul 6J3-J	jl	.Г-LJ m*> jl jLa. <lX ‘it
turned out that his house was farther from the banqueting hall than
mine (was)’. Denial where there is still room for doubt may prompt a
Subjunctive: лекин х;еч гох. надидам, ки у бо он чуб кас-е-ро
зада бошад t>jj I	j_a. jT L jl <_£	I
xiiL ‘but I never saw him hit anyone with that stick’ (‘...that he might
have...’).
When a past event or experience is reported, it is usually done in
the same tense that the experiencer would have used in speaking or
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315
thinking at the time; thus the past tense of the introductory verb of
communication is followed by a present or a future tense, corresponding
to the English quotative past or past future: отряд худ-ро тавр-е
во-намуд мекард, ки аз ният-и душман хеч вокиф нест jLyil
* 1 * fl fl1 А л *"1 1 * j'	о	IJ	। jJj
‘the detachment pretended that it was totally unaware of the enemy’s
intentions’ (‘pretended in a way... that it is...’); маълум мешуд, ки
у... дар хурдан аст cu—I jjjj-G. jj ...jl	£ j—fjl« » ‘it
became clear that... he was [‘is’] at table/ eating’; Ахмадчон хатто
хурсанд буд, ки бо раис дар кабинет-и у гуфтугу хохад кард
f ->
j-S j <22.1 А JI <21 1 *1 1 > J J ^jii. JLi J Li	*** * “3	(J -* Л '
xaljA ‘Ahmadjon was even happy that he would be talking to the
boss in his office’ (‘will talk...’).
Complements of verbs conveying desire, obligation, potential (as
in modal constructions, 4.20-23), command, refusal, doubt, expectation,
or any other unreal event or state, will generally have their verb in the
Subjunctive: шумо хак Доред, ки хамин тавр фикр кунед I п Л,
.UA.liSi jj_L <u£ xj jlj jj^/you are right to think so’; хукм
шуд, ки аввал Котибй касида-и худ-ро хонад Jjl <_£ л Л
xilI jjjG.	_i .si a ‘it was decreed that first Kotibi should
recite his poem’; вай ба чунин карор омад, ки хавли-и худ-ро
фурушад j-iijj-fl I jjjA	< д-Л jlj-3 j-pe- 4 cSj‘he came
to the decision to sell his house’.
Confident expectation of a future eventuality will often generate an
Indicative: хар нафас интизор буд ки Боровиков уро чег мезанад
xij £  7 I jjl <_sl  < jjl jj jjj jl "»•.! и,.а\ jjb ‘at any mom-
ent he expected Borovikov to summon him’ (...that B. will summon
him’); дигар Мухтор шубха намекард, ки масъала дар бора-и
духтар-и директор меравад <lLLlu_o	. j l~i Ч n _>Lj
jj j	j"'a jL jj ‘Mukhtor was no longer in any doubt
that the problem with the director’s daughter would go away’.
4.16	Sentential Complements (2): Particular Types
The following survey does not include direct and reported speech (see
4.18), or the complements of modal verbs (4.20-25).
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Indirect questions (embedded questions) often retain ki, even in the
presence of an interrogative or the particle oyo (4,7-8): мо медонем
(ки) куж,о меравем	I	Lo ‘we know where
we’re going’ (Turkic style: мо кучо рафтан-и худ-ро медонем L>
jx_Ll	I jjj—a. j-i-sj La $); пурсид, ки оё омадани-анд ё не
(_/> L jLl LT л _i . ‘he asked whether they were/ would
be coming (or not)’. Sometimes ki may replace oyo in an indirect
yes-no question: маълум нест, ки дар он чох.о мувофид-и табъ
зиндагонй карда метавонем, ёне 1лЦ. jj <£ .- ' L_a
(jL L	("jLlSjJj j-xL 3-sl‘we are not sure whether
(or not) we can live comfortably over there’.
The verb пурсидан ________>_‘to ask’ may take as its object
complement a NP that implies a more complete question phrase: Шодй
тафсил-и вок,еа-ро пурсид	Ij<l»_2Ij J . ^jLL ‘Shodi
asked [about/ for] the details of the occurrence’; аскар-и сурх падар-и
моро пурсид j _< ..._>_> I jLa jj_i jS... r ‘the Red Army soldier
asked [about/ the whereabouts of) our father’ (see also 4.18).
When indirect question complements (Persian style) are introduced
without ki, they usually come before the main clause: {ran аз чй cap
шуда ба кучо мерафт}, х.оло касе ахдмият намедод <ц>. jl ._>£}
л al (_s-^	<{ou> LLL j_^,‘{how the discus-
sion started and where it led}, no one now cared’ (a paratactic
construction; the full idiom is ba — ahamiyat dodan ‘to attribute
importance to s.t.’, and would require a “Sentential pronoun” before
ki: see below); {уро дар кучо дидам}, ба ёд оварда наметавонистам
Р '11oJjjl jL_j_j <{f j-jJ I 7 S jj Ijjl] ‘I could not recall
{where I had seen him}’. Question complements following the main
clause without ki are often treated (and punctuated) as direct questions:
надонам, чаро наомад? S j___«Lj Ijx=. <^L>IjJ ‘I don’t know why he
didn’t come’ (‘1 don’t know, why didn’t he come?’).
Turkic style nominalizing of one or more infinitives can result in
quite complex, nested NPs as indirect questions: албатта {{кй будан-и
ин духтар-ро} гуфтан} даркор нест	<21----_i_l I
j </of course one needn’t tell (anyone)
who this girl is’ (lit. *... telling the being-who of this girl is not necessary’;
Persian style, in three clauses: албатта лозим нест, ки бигуем, ки
SYNTAX
317
ин духтар кист .z. м, X jSLj (jjl <i£	fj)l <t-Ljl).
Concomitant complements. The simultaneous perception of an action
in progress (a type of object complement) may be expressed by means
of a ^-clause (usually with the Present or Present Progressive tense;
see under Subordinate verbs, 4.15): вай шунид, ки як мошин
меояд j_jT Jj Л.1 л S-л <S j'i Л, ‘he heard a car coming’,
вай... аз дур дид, ки Мунира аз баландй фуромада истода-аст
i~i  6jl ~i ui 11 6j_olj—s *iI । jl 6j i i n jjj jl ‘from a
distance he saw Munira descending from the height’ (‘...that she is
descending...’).
Complements of purpose, reason, result, etc. Main clauses which
announce the nature of their complement (‘the goal.-., is to...’, ‘the
fault... lay in...’ and the like) usually require a Sentential pronoun
before ki (see 4.15).
Purpose: NP complements of purpose are illustrated in 2.20 (see baro-i)
and 4.17 (see Pseudo-reported speech), and purpose clauses of
other kinds in 4.40. Like the latter, purpose complements of the
type discussed here have their verb in the Present Subjunctive:
орзу-и ягона-и мо ин аст, ки фарзандон-амон хушбахт
бошанд .-А ;	jLlILijj-i «l£ .itj-uuI (j-J Lo sulTj^jjji
< ' Л.1 j ‘our one desire is that our children (should) be happy’;
омадан-и Мухсин махз барои хамин буд, ки падар-и худ-ро
бинад I jdj <(_$	j j п д> и***	" u “* л и*1—
‘Muhsin’s sole purpose in coming was to see his father’;
шаб-у руз дар паи [пай-и] ин буд, ки бой шавад j
jj_4i	<l_$ jj-, (j_>l jj jjj ‘night and day he pursued the
goal of getting rich’.
Reason: ман ба хамин хурсанд будам, ки барои хондан дар
Бухоро рох-е ёфтам ^I^j <—S	A j-u—а—
Ь1 > ^j-ftl j Ijl ~  jj jailjA ‘I was happy because I had found
a way to study in Bukhara’; сабаб-и «обхона» номидан-и ин
хабсхона ин буд, ки... об-и мурдор ба дараж,а-и ч,орй
шудан расида, ба тах-и банди-хо шорид "<c>LA. <_>Г
jJjLa. LijJj jljj_0 I_J ...<S «Jj-а (jjl *LLa. JU J -I. (jjl j,' j nLj
'.jLi l д .	. <LL -ал  ...j jjji ‘the reason why this prison was
called “the Waterhouse” was that... the sewage overflowed and
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washed over the feet of the prisoners’.
Result (or Manner): this type of clause may be indistinguishable from
a complement of purpose, except that, since the result is reported
as being achieved, the verb is in the Indicative: тартиб-и дарун-и
он чунон буд, ки дил-и кас зик. намешуд jT JjjJ   Jl
Л	>	х	х
jj Jj	‘the interior [of it] was arranged
in such a way that no one was ever bored’ (cf. 4.40).
Quality: a complement expressing a judgment often has recourse to the
pronominal formula: ...дар (хам)ин [аст] [cu_uJ] j ~ jj
‘...[lies] in this, namely, that...’: айб-и тарх-и чадид-ашон дар
дамин буд, ки харч-и он аз хад зиёд шуд q »
jL j j^=. jl jT £j-=>	<jj_> Зе-0-41 jj jLijjxa/the trouble
with their new plan was/ lay in the fact that it cost too much’;
аммо таачуб дар ин чост, ки у хануз бача-и чавон-ест Cl
Ouuul^jJilj-a.	jl <1-1	Jj _I > *">‘butthe
amazing thing is that he is still a young boy’ (‘...the surprise is in
here, that...’); тафовут дар ин буд, ки... <jj_j _>j c^jl______U
‘the difference was in the fact that...’, etc. A frequent general
formula for foregrounding a statement is: ran дар ин 40, ки...
<La. j-J jj	‘the point/ thing is, that...’
The choice of demonstrative may be semantically significant,
with ин pointing to a present situation or anticipating a
future event, and он jl referring to a past state or one more
remote from personal experience: бади-и кор дар ин аст,
ки....<£ <cl>-uuI J-jI jj _,(£ ‘the drawback is/ will be that...’,
акида-и ман он буд, ки.........<_£ .jj_> 3! »j ? а г ‘I used to
think that...’ (cf. 2.31).
4.17	Miscellaneous Sentential Complements
Some main clause antecedents of sentential complements are frozen
forms, i.e. stylized remnants of one-word sentences introducing a hope
or fear: such агемабодо Ijl j n апбнаход (j_a>lj \'>) d ‘God
forbid (that)...; I hope (that)... not...’, and the colloquial раваду /рафту
jeu-ij \ j jjj ‘I hope (that)...’. The first two are old precatives, lit.
‘may it not be’ and ‘may (God) not wish’ (see examples, 3.26-28);
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319
they also occur as particles introducing questions (4.8-9) and Conditional
clauses (4.38). Ravad-и/ raft-u is literally ‘let it go, and...’, i.e., may all
go/ have gone well (cf. the archaic phrase раво бошад iL I j j ‘it
is/ may it be lawful/ harmless’).
To the extent that they are no longer transparent or analyzable,
these may also be categorized as sentence adverbs, like the Arabic
collocation иншооллох/ иншаллох I ₽l-------------Д j I and its Persian
translation худо хохад xalj_____i. Ij_i.‘God willing; I hope (that)...’;
these are parenthetical, and normally followed by a verb in the Indicative:
худо хохад, пас аз дах дак,ик.а мерасем jl < xalIxA
л _...<*« j.' ‘all being well, we’ll get there in ten minutes’.
Examples: мабодо дар рафт-и бозй ягон бача шакконй ё
гирромй мекард I j_c 1_>	L t-Д j jj Ijl—1—л
jj<_-«‘I hope none of the children has pulled some stupid prank while
playing’ (Conditional tense, the past-future unreal mode). Ma-bodo,
like na-xod, includes a negative prefix, hence the verb of the dependent
clause is properly affirmative; however, the obsolete ma- may not be
recognized, and strong precatives sometimes introduce a negative
Subjunctive: мабодо ба у чашм-и бад нарасад xj у-4.,^ jL Ы_1_д
x-uu‘may he avoid misfortune’ (lit. ‘may it [not] be that the evil eye
not reach him’); наход у... ба назди мо омада истода бошад?
S x-iL л,'1	.1 La jJ-aj jl хл1 j ‘is he really coming/ on his
way to see us?’ (Present Progressive Subjunctive, for a surmise about
a simultaneous activity); cf. English ‘don’t tell me..!’, a stylized
expression of surprise; see also 4.8, 4.9); раваду ин одам ба мо
некй карданй бошад j_iL>	jj ‘I hope
this person means us well/ is going to do us a good turn’ (Subjunctive
of the Quasi-Future tense, 3.42); рафту Равшан... дар хона ба-хузур
нишаста бошад j_iL> <i Т Л \ j . А ।	...j-ijj	‘I
hope Ravshan is (sitting) comfortably at home’.
‘Remember’ and ‘forget’. A variety of idioms express conscious or
unconscious recall (and the converse) of items, facts, and obligations,
some of which involve sentential complements. The principal words
concerned are the nouns ёд jL> ‘memorial, reminder, recall’ (essentially,
the external token of remembrance) and хотир	‘mind,
consciousness, memory’ (the mental capacity).
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Conscious recall is expressed with a personal verb: гуфта-и
падар-ам-ро ёд овардам/ ба хотир овардам	~ <
j_LI. к AfJjjT jLj ‘I remembered my father’s words’ (‘I
brought... (to) memory/ to mind’). ‘I remind s.o. of s.t.’ is4H3e-po
ба хотир-и касе расонидам < .‘J ...j Id к 
or mobilizing the personal causative of rasidan ‘to arrive, come’,
which is used impersonally to express unconscious recall (see
below):
Conscious storage or repeated recall: маро ёд кунед л .‘X jl_> I
‘remember me’; ту хурд буди, уро дар ёд надорй Jjj—A
jLj jj Ijjl «cjjj-j ‘you were little, you don’t/ won’t
remember him’; ин маълумот-ро дар хотир мегузаронам/
нигод медорам jljl-Sjj I л
(» jIxa-o ‘I’ll remember/keep in mind these facts’.
Unconscious (unbidden) recall is best expressed by means of impersonal
verbs: ба /бо хотир-ам расид/ омад ки кор дорам 1_> \<_>
jLS <l£ j_oT\ j _i । <,j (»‘I remember/ just remembered
that I have work to do’ (‘it came to my mind (just now, hence I
am mindful) that...’); the past tense, as bearer of the Perfective
aspect, expresses the punctual event that triggered the present
conscious state. A past case of unbidden recall might be expressed
by the Pluperfect or the Durative Past (Imperfect) of the impersonal
verb: аммо ин хато-и ман ба хотир-и ака-ам на-мерасид
j (»l 4.SI j-LLk-i	L> I‘but my elder brother
did not remember this mistake of mine’.
Forgetting may be expressed by impersonal or personal verbs: агар аз
ёд-ам на-баромада бошад...........jl j_Sl
‘unless it has slipped my mind/ if I have not forgotten...’; аз
ёд-аш рафт, ки бояд соат-и шаш ин ч,о биёяд jl---------1 I
ajLxj I \_il (ji-i euxLcu xjL <l£ j ‘he forgot that he had to
come here at six o’clock’; дигар ёд-и Бухоро на-кард
jI jLk_i jL ‘he no longer remembered/ thought about Bukh-
ara’ (negation of ‘conscious storage’, see above); чойкаши-ро
фаромуш кард j_aIj_S I	‘he forgot to pour
the tea’ (‘...the tea-pouring’; an Action noun as nominalized
sentential object complement). This construction (or that with an
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321
Infinitive phrase, чой кашидан-ро I j j ^Ц.) may only be
used for the forgetting of an obligation; if he forgot the fact that
he had poured tea, a b-complement clause with a past tense would
serve: фаромуш кард, ки чой кашида буд <£	j_i
Most of the idioms using personal verbs may use ki- complements
with appropriate finite verb forms to express ‘[I] remembered/ forgot
that...’; most of the impersonal constructions may introduce a NP
sentential subject or object (an infinitive or Action noun phrase), e.g.,
{он кадар солхурда будан-и у} комилан ёд-ам рафта буд jl]
«LLij yujl (jjj-j > 'jj II... jI had completely forgot-
ten that he was so old’ (‘his being so old... slipped my mind’).
4.18	Reporting Speech
Reporting what people say (or think) is a special case of the sentential
complement. To reproduce someone’s actual words (or thoughts), there
is a Persian style, generally using the complementizer ки (cf. 4.15),
and a variety of Turkic-influenced variations in word order, without ki,
more frequently seen in MLT. To report indirect speech, the ki-
complement clause is again available, as also is the Turkic-style
Infinitive-nominalization as an object complement (for both, cf. 4.15).
Seven distinct types may be identified, the most characteristic of Tajik,
Type 7, being the Turkic-style “pseudo-direct speech” construction. In
this a loose participial Conjunct structure introduces an idealized
quotation as a complement with a variety of meanings (purpose,
circumstance, cause). These styles are described here under two main
rubrics, “Two-Clause” and “One-Clause” constructions; the tags “direct”
and “indirect” refer only to whether the speaker’s actual words are
reproduced or not.
Punctuation (in Cyrillic, and often in Perso-Arabic) uses variants
of the Russian style of dashes with or without commas. In current
usage there is a tendency to standardize it: French-style quotation
marks are used to enclose a speech string that is introduced in the
course of the narrative, but dialogue is introduced by an em-dash, each
new speaker beginning a new line (1.16).
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(1)	Two-Clause, direct: In the Persian type, the actual speech string
follows the verb of saying, usually introduced by ki ‘that’: муаллим
гуфт (ки): «акнун дафдтархо-ятон-ро гиред»	« -
' jj_^ I j (jLbLajJLaj :(<£) ‘the teacher said, “Now take
your notebooks’”. Any kind of verb conveying speech or thought
may be used, and quotation marks, dashes, or other punctuation
are not always provided: пурсид ки [чаро... / оё...] <£ .< , .,
[...UT \lj-a-] ‘he asked [why.../ whether...]’ (see Questions, 4.8);
амр дод, ки <t_£ ,jlj j_ol ‘he ordered’ (Imperative, 3.29); фикр
мекардам, ки ман танхо кастам I	<t_5 j
д> ‘I thought, “I am alone’”.
(2)	Two-Clause, direct: In the Turkic-style variant, the VP of saying
may follow the speech string, verb first: ука, бисьёр калонгирй
накунед! -гуфт Шокир ба Ахмад	_.<'.yl < J ... ? <<_$31
“‘little brother, don’t be so high-and-
mighty,” said Shokir to Ahmad’; or it may be incorporated
parenthetically between narrative and discourse, or within the
speech string: ман бе-сабрй кардам, равам гуфта, кампир
намонд jSl_^ j ?	f	‘I grew
impatient and said I wanted to go (‘saying “let me go’”), but the
old woman wouldn’t let me’; ман, -гуфт, -ба шахр намеравам
j»j_$ 4.4-j- <,^.,8	<(j_a ‘“I,” she said, “am not going to
town’” (or simply ‘“I’m not going to town,” she said’; this word
order is not necessarily emphatic).
In MLT, only guftan is commonly used as a finite verb in this
formulation (see below under (5)). In current Tajik, however, any
verb of communication may appear, and the speech string may
follow the speech verb: чаро ба кор наомадй? -фарёд зад
раис j jj jUj__________a- S^j___oLs jLS-j I“‘why didn’t you
come to work?” shouted the manager’; вай маро дида пурсид:
-Намедонй, имруз Жола ба Хоруг меравад ё не? 1^_о
La	£ JjLL 4-1 <d I j jj_>-»l	: .U.
‘Seeing me, he asked: “do you know whether Zhola is going to
Khorugh today?”’ (a negative question is often more polite; cf.
Eng. ‘you don’t happen to know...?’).
(3)	Two-Clause, indirect: ‘I’ and ‘you’ and their plurals are relative
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323
terms; when speech is reported, there may be a systematic deictic
shift in these and their corresponding markers, in Tajik as in English.
In the traditional Persian-style ^-complement, there may be no
overt distinction, in some persons of the verb, between direct and
indirect speech: фикр мекардам, ки ман танхо хастам
4_S	I thought, “I am alone” or ‘I thought
that I was alone’ (since Persian does not shift temporal deixis,
retaining the same tense as would have been used originally by
the speaker or thinker; see 4.15, Subordinate verbs). However,
when this statement, for example, is reported by someone else
(indirectly), it will usually be reworded after ki as фикр мекард,
ки (у) танхо-ст I—(jl) <—S jj_jXj ‘he thought
(that) he was alone’.
If the actual speech included an Imperative, this is changed in
indirect reporting to a present subjunctive (see 3.29, under Optative):
Чдхоноро фарьёд кард, ки уро кушанд	1 jl
,с.л< I jjl <iS ‘Jahonoro shouted that they should kill him’ (orig.,
‘shouted, “kill me!”’); ба писар-аш амр дод, ки вай олу-и
ба замин рехта-ро... чида, ба куттй андохтан тирад
(j-Lj-l-i ЬД-J-a. ...I j 4 ~ Ч IJ Jj-oJ-i	4_S jlj _>-al j Ш-Ц
'.I ‘he told his son to pick up the plums that had
spilled onto the ground and start putting them into a box’.
(4)	One-Clause, indirect: The speech string may also be reported
indirectly as an Infinitive phrase object of the verb of saying: вай
ба кишлок рафтан-аш-ро гуфт 0,4Si lJ(Jn ‘Г< «j	u. a?
‘she said that she was going to the village’ (lit., ‘told her going...’);
ман пул ёфта натавонистан-ам-ро гуфтам 4 aU j_o
i <	••I‘I said that I could not get (any) money’ (cf.
4.16,	Indirect questions, under Turkic style).
(5)	Two- or One-Clause, direct: If the verb of saying in a sentence of
Type 2 is anything other than guftan ‘to say’, it is replaced (in
MLT) by a serial verb construction which places the non-finite
гуфта < a < immediately after the speech string, followed (after
the subject and any other constituents) by an inflected form of the
specific speech verb: худ-и у кист? - гуфта ман аз Рахим
К,анд пурсидам i -kj JI	i S- So,... j jl Jj-A
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‘“who is he, exactly?” I asked Rahim Qand’ (‘... saying...
I asked’); дав, ба амир-и кушбегй «Эшон-и козикалон ва
Эшон-и раискалон омаданд» гуфта хабар дех! j- > л!_>«у
j-jj_of	<_)*1 1J о। ‘“J । 3 <j^-^	cjl jI i 1 ch3-3
j У 4 Л a ‘run, inform the lord Chief Minister that Their
Honors the Chief Qadi and the Morals and Market Inspector have
come!’.
Participial gufta may be replaced by the verbal adjective-adverb
гуён (jCj—S ‘saying’ (3.39): «хуб шуд» гуён фикр мекард
вай осудатар шуда	__о ^jUj < "j__________i u_,j_1*
yi ajЛ ‘“good,” he thought, (feeling) relieved’.
(6)	One-Clause, embedded, direct: A speaker relaying someone else’s
words to a third party may end with a quotative буда-аст
dj-uol with or without a verb of saying (‘[the word] apparently
is’; see 3.21): Пулод ако, модар-ам хурок тайёр карданд,
рошед буда-аст	jlLl, fjjL <L£I
cxwLyj ‘Pulod, (I’m to tell you) my mother has cooked a
meal, and to hurry up’;2 Рафик, Николай, муовин-и раис
телефон карданд, гуфтанд, ки то омадан-и он кас дар
хамин ч,о сабр карда шинетон буда-аст	; j . oj
(j * л ft j J jiX (j I al L 4-^ Л i ' fl^ i	fl I >	1	(j3I * °
(jhj j'i j Л, и/ j.z> La. ‘Comrade Nikolai, the vice
chairman phoned, he said (and I quote) you are to wait right there
until the visitor arrives’ (sistan functioning as a progressive
auxiliary; see 3.20). This idiom, found in MLT, originates in the
Northern dialects.
(7)	Pseudo-direct speech: An idealized quotation, purportedly revealing
what was in the agent’s mind to explain the cause or purpose of
the action in the main clause, forms a sentential complement; this
may be a single word, a phrase, or a whole sentence, and is
usually embedded in a serial coordinate construction (4.19), using
a non-finite form of guftan (either gufta or guy on): аз хамон руз
xap отиш-ро ачдна гуфта метарсидам _уь jjj jl_________________jl
j».' j	4 л a 4_l^I I J(JL3f ‘from that day forth, I regarded
every fire as a jinn, and was afraid (of it)’ (‘calling [it] “jinn”’;
2 rosed (colloq.) is a contraction of roh saved ‘hit the road, get a move on’.
SYNTAX
325
cause); хурч,ин-ро хам ба шумо мукофот гуён дихад
aaj	I л  и । ^а I j Jj-a.‘he should give you the
saddlebag too, as a reward’ (‘calling (it) “reward”’; cause); як
духтарак «аз ин нахр об мегирам» гуфта гард шуда буда-аст
6j_± jj-c 4 ~i 8-g "fj-j-g^ <_J j-нр Jl"
! ьлj-j ‘a little girl is said to have drowned while trying to
draw water from this canal’ (‘saying “I’ll get water from this
canal’”; cause); нафак,а-и ахл-и аёл гуён ин 5-6 пул-ро
захира карда будем I Р- 0 jUj-g JL-j-c JaI
S _______a.j‘we saved these five or six small coins to help
support our wives and children’ (‘calling [them] “expenses for our
family’”; purpose).
The complement clause may be postposed: on[hjo grupa
kar[d]an[d], ‘hami[n] rais-a namexo[h]em’ gufta ‘they organized
(a group) to protest [the appointment of] this chairman’ (“‘we
don’t want this chairman” saying’; purpose); or it may be introduced
by a finite form of guftan, or an infinitive phrase: нак,ш-и no-e
хам наменамуд, то ки «дузд омадааст ва гурехтааст» гуянд
4 "1 L,,j_g j CJ—I	Jj/ 4_g Lj i J j—a-L	n л ^-A Lj jn fl ~i
‘there was not even any sign of footprints which
might have indicated that a thief had been and [then] escaped’
(‘so that [people] might say...’; to... ki... is a purpose clause con-
junction; see 4.40); ин иморатхо бо гуфтани-и «тахминан
чор таноб, тахминан дах ман» бино шуда-анд j—J
Lj_> jj-о Ь J I '.  « k ". (l_,(_1Д jL». I ~i I (I k *i Ф*\ 8 -g L La lZj jl—о—C.
aLl aj_2> ‘these buildings were evidently constructed on the princi-
ple ‘a yard or so here, a pound or so there’ (‘by saying...’; i.e.,
they were shoddily built; cause).
The verb guftan or a synonym might even be omitted: ин-ро
хукумат барои он ч,орй карда-аст, ки нишон дихад: дар
ин ч,о... хама-и шумо якранг ва баробар хастед Ij-ЦЛ
.. . I \ 11 jj -JAJ ^jl hi I 4_g ,1" i nil aJj-g с5_)Ц. (jf (_gl J_J iT>-ajg->
л jjIjj j ugJi^g_> La <LaA ‘the government set this up in
order to show that everyone is equal’ (‘...to show: “here... you are
all... equal”; purpose, though in this case there is an explicit
conjunction of purpose to introduce the pseudo-direct speech).
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Other idioms with гуфтан j~iK The verb guftan ‘to say, tell’ also
means ‘to call’, i.e., to name s.t. or s.o.: y-po Аббос мегуфтанд I jjl
jL" д	‘they called him/ used to call him Abbos’ (cf. 4.4).
As such, it may still participate in a participial Conjunct of reported
speech: Тоторхо бошанд, ч,адидон-и худ-ро «ёшлар» гуфта ran
мезаданд, маъни-и ин хам «давонон» аст .д \ Л.1_> LajLlLs
(jLljja.	< J-5j3 , ^0	jJ (jiL"	(jla-jJja,
ej-^.1 ‘As for the Tatars, they called their Jadids “Yoshlar,” which
means “young men’”.
The participle гуфта <t lb or the verbal adverb гуён j L (cf.
Type 5 above), may function independently in a sentence or a serial
coordinate (4.19) to introduce direct speech, with no other than its
literal meaning: ана каду-и об! -гуфта духтар каду-ро нишон
дод Jj jLAl I jjj-S jG2.j < "i_i !<_J	<11 “‘that’s a ‘water
pumpkin’, said the girl, pointing to the pumpkin’; дароед! -гуён
аввал маро аз дар дароварда, баъд аз он худ даромад ! j.i ,Tjj
jj Jj-A. jl jl <6jjjTjj jj jl lj_a Jjl jUj-S- ‘saying
“come in!” he first ushered me inside, then came in himself’. Structurally
such a sentence may resemble Type 7, but the sense of the discourse
will preclude a more elaborate interpretation (cf. also гуё Lj_S under
Speculative simile, 4.32).
4.19 Serial Verb Coordination
There are three progressively tighter levels of syntactic connection
between the non-finite Past Participle I form, or gerund, and the finite
verb following it:
(1)	Loosest of all is that of a Serial verb coordinate, in which any
appropriate verbs in a series of coordinate clauses may form a
complex sentence such that all verbs except the last assume the
non-finite form, this being interpreted as an earlier tense than, or
the same tense as, the terminal, finite verb: бобо дар-и куча-ро
кушода ба хона даромад j-<j ,j <sLk_i I j _,j LL
‘Dad opened the street door and came into the house’. This
semantically autonomous, and syntactically quasi-independent,
level is the one discussed in this section.
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327
(2)	Conjunct verbs (5.20-21), in which a restricted repertoire of verbs
as the finite terminal verb act as adverbial auxiliaries, in close
conjunction (i.e, juxtaposition in the same clause) with the non-finite
form of a broader range of verbs, together signifying a single
complex action: парранда парида рафт ciJij	‘the
bird flew away’.
(3)	The level of grammaticalization, at which a particular verb (истодан
~   -I ‘to stand’) in certain compound tenses combines with
another semantically appropriate verb, in the non-finite form, to
create an aspectually Progressive tense: хонда истода-аст
...I л <1".... J ajLljA ‘she is reading’ (‘reading she is standing’;
3.18-19).
In a narrative sequence, several participial phrases may follow one
after the other, each moving the story a step farther: ояндагон ба
дар-и дучра даровул монда, аз тараф-и куча ба пеш-и тиреза
омада, тиреза-ро шикаста маро кашола карда ба куча
фароварданд «Ц-j-^ u_sjJ= jl . a дЛ1 о Jjlj_a aj	jL-S
j > a J	4—1 I ц ।	lj_a 4—" । и 5 Л. IjaJ——al a J—ij-j (jui > г 4—.
xLjjjlj___a ‘the newcomers posted a look- out at the door of the cell,
approached the window from the street side, broke the window, and
pulled me out into the street’. In a descriptive or descriptive-narrative
sequence, the action of the finite verb takes place immediately after, or
at the same time as, and/ or in consequence of, the action of the
participial form: офтоб торафт баландтар баромада, даво тадридан
гарм мешуд j.»_i л	L^_j jaS Ij_a xaij-i	oub jlS
‘as the sun rose higher, the air gradually grew warm’ (subsequent,
simultaneous, and consequent; different subjects); устодо-и гулдаст
девордо-и чортараф- и медмонхона-ро кошинкорй карда, дар
Л,	>
гуна гулдо партофта буданд ^Lajlj_jj cj. ...л 15 cjLaI—j--------uJ
<t " al .j-i I д I < 4_jj_^ j-A	I j 4_jI jl a .n
j-Sjj_ ‘skilled craftsmen had tiled the walls all around the guestroom,
decorating them with all kinds of flowers’ (consequent; same subject).
The participial form of the verb ‘to be’, буда ьаj_., is indifferent to
tense; it is to be interpreted as ‘being’, or ‘is’, etc., in present sequence
(when the finite verb is Present, Future, or Present Perfect) and ‘was,
were’ in past sequence (when the finite verb is in a past tense); the
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logical sequence is thus either simultaneous or consequent: у шахс-и
бомаърифат буда, вазифа-и худ-ро бо хисс-и масъулият-
шиноси-и баланд ич,ро мекунад .ал« * 1_> а Л jl
j л I xll_i <xi_Jj n L>=>-a. L I jja j Laj ‘he is a man of
sensitivity, who carries out/ will carry out his duty with a sense of lofty
responsibility’ (present sequence); забон-и точдгкй як-е аз кддим-
тарин забонхо-и дуньё буда, бо ин забои асархо-и оламшумул-и
илмй ва адабй офарида шуда-анд ^xJi jl )_>< . 7I". jLj
j ।g Jj л "i^JLc	jjLjj (j_jl Li <aLxjj	j
jjil ал—Д aa_jj—sf ^jl ‘the Tajik language is one of the oldest lang-
uages in the world, and universal works of scholarship and literature
have been created in it’ (present sequence); у одам-и кадпаст,
ришкалон буда, тахминан чихилсола менамуд	ajl
<dI mi I d Lx.i n kT aaj-j	j ‘he was a man of small
stature with a long beard, and/ who appeared to be about forty’ (past
sequence).
A serial verb may be used in the first sentence of an adversative
conjunct (4.14): занч,ир-и ин ишкел хам монанд-и ишкелхо-и
мукаррарй набуда, балки дарози-и у ба дарач,а-е буд, ки
кадкашак-и одам то ба гардан-и у мерасид J£_xl jyJ ? j
4-^ «Jj-j (_gl	jl (_5 jl jJ 4^1 i ij	t—g. IX Mil A *» 'll-л
j _i M,iJcfj jl	Li i-^ m, Sa a ‘the chain on these fetters, too,
was not like the regulation fetters, but of [such] a length that it reached
right up to a man’s neck’ (past sequence).
A non-finite serial form may be part of a progressive tense, or a
passive sentence: духтарон, пахта чида истода, ашула мехонданд
xixil<Jj_il <6jl ~i in J 6a i> 4 A<(jlj -» A.i ‘while picking
cotton, the girls were singing songs’ (simultaneous, same subject); дар
ин дам дар берун овоз-и ran шунида шуда, баъд аз к,адр-е ба
хона Дилбар ва Латофат даромада омаданд Jjj________________j_ ,1
Xj Jj T а Ха T j J Cji LL=J J j_J J (J j jj j I XUU < a Xui a A I *1 iu <_lS j I jl ‘ at
that moment the sound of talking was heard outside, and after a short
while Dilbar and Latofat came in’ (subsequent, different subject; the
last instance, daromada, is a constituent of a standard Conjunct verb
idiom, lit. ‘enter-come’).
A participial conjunct may also be followed by (hence, stand for) a
SYNTAX
329
clause in which the VP is an Imperative or an Infinitive: бур-ро гирифта
ин ч,умла-ро нависед! !д j .,>_ij_j Ijd-amx <i	‘take
the chalk and write this sentence!’; аз борон гурехта ба барф
афтодан jjCLil <-2^ «и d ~ o'j*-e j' ‘to run from the ra‘n ОП'У
to be caught in the snow’ (prov., i.e., ‘out of the frying pan into the
fire’).
In a negative sentence where the coordinated acts form a closely-
connected logical sequence, the negative prefix may attach only to the
finite verb (though its scope includes the non-finite phrase): хайрият...
ки ман таклифи К,озизода-хо-ро кабул намуда, замини Сок-
таре-ро гарав на-мондам ____________3 . idC,	<1—£ ...culj—е “•
'<1 л '» I jj '1" и ' " j	j fl	‘a good thing
that I didn’t accept the Qozizodas’ offer and mortgage the Soktare
property’ (‘...accepting the Q.’s offer I did not...’).
When a Past Participle II forms part of a non-finite conjunct, it is
likely to be functioning as an adjective rather than a verbal participle:
баъзе ракамхо бо сурхй навиштагй буда, дар боло-яшон бо
сиёх,й хат кашидагй буд	mj_i	L Laj>-Sj « ?
jj_j .л< LA i^-д! L jl ,7, jj ‘somefigures were written
in red, and overlined in black’ (not the Pluperfect Passive navista suda
[buda] ‘had been written’; cf. 3.36, Not Passive).
The logical link may in some scenarios approach an explanatory,
instrumental or causal connection: ин таклиф даханакй буда, сабаб-и
даъват хам маълум карда намешуд <<ьад-i u<.'i aj t—
f-A j-cj <_ .1J since this proposal was delivered
orally, the reason for the invitation was not revealed’ (‘this proposal
being oral...’; the last instance, karda, is part of the long, and therefore
explicit, Passive of ma’lum kardan (3.36): not ma‘lum na-sud ‘did not
become known’, but ‘was not made known’); дар остова пой куфта
ё нидо-е бароварда уро аз омаданй худ огох мекарданд jj
al—ST jj_A. (Ja—of jl Ijjl ftJjjT_h 1 ,211 J-j Lj *1 ~i (gLj <Cil T ml
jJijJ< 1 ‘on the threshold they would alert her of their arrival by
stamping their feet or calling out’ (3.43; cf. 4.18, Type 7).
The two clauses may in some cases complement each other’s sense
to produce a conceptually (though not necessarily lexically) single
composite meaning: баъд мо хеста, ин хона омадем I—а □—
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4_llA (^jl <4 Л,., j A.‘then we (up and) moved to this house’. The
simple act of coming to a (new) house (omadem) is qualified as a
change of residence by a temporal and logical link to xesta ‘arisen’,
i.e., packed up, moved out. The two VPs are still separated by the ad
hoc adverbial (ba) in xona, and therefore do not technically make a
Conjunct verb construction (5.20). Also close to the Conjunct verb is
the following type of construction, in which an adverbial is verbalized
by the dummy kardan and juxtaposed to the main verb: дар шифт-и
айвон чарог-и хира милт-милт карда месухт ^Ij-d jj
,,-л QjCo-eJ-a й Д Ijja. ‘on the ceiling of the porch a
dim lamp was winking’ (‘burned blink-blink’).
In other cases, two or even three verbs may be concatenated (in the
following example, as part of a Turkic-style nominalized sentential
complement), without belonging to the established repertoire of Conjunct
verb auxiliaries: ин гандум-и зиёдатй ба боз гашта гирифта
бурдан намеарзад < j i4.	% jL 4_ j
jjjl^j-aJ/this extra wheat is not worth taking back’ (‘...to go back-
take-carry’). Such coordinate clauses illustrate how the Conjunct verb
phrases may have evolved.
MODAL CONSTRUCTIONS
4.20 Necessity and Obligation
‘Must’ has its counterpart in the impersonal defective verb бояд
‘it is necessary (that)’ (neg. на-бояд xJ_jJ>). This is invariably 3rd
singular, the agent being identified by the NP or pronominal subject of
the complement clause and/ or the personal ending of its verb, which
is in the Present Subjunctive of potential action: (ман) бояд равам
(»jj j_jLj (ф-o) ‘I must go/ have to go’; коргарон бояд барвадт
cap-и кор оянд хЬТ jLS	a_>L ^Ij-SjLS ‘(the) workers
must come to work early/ on time’. The complement clause may govern
further complements: рафидон бояд дар назар дошта бошанд ки
мо хануз касал хастем La 4_£ л А Л.Ь 4 т л.L j_L_l jj jjL jla - ij
-j ... * J.„ S jj •' a ‘(our) friends must/ should bear in mind that we
SYNTAX
331
are still sick’.
For impersonal expressions the Short Infinitive replaces the Sub-
junctive in an Active sentence: бояд кор кард £ jL_£	‘one
must work, [we/ you/ people] have to work’; бояд ин-ро дар хотир
нигох ДОШТе^Лз oLSLl j-LLA. jj IjJ_JxjL ‘one must keep this in
mind’, бояд дар хотир нигох дошт ки аз ин до хеле рох аст
...I 6lj u±_i A L > ц1 jl <L-S ‘-l i alls j-LLA jj ajLj ‘one must
keep in mind/ it must be kept in mind that it is a long way from here’.
In a conditional context, the Imperfect prefix me- is added: мебоист
гуфт, ки......<l£	i_i л ‘it ought to be said, that...’.
A simple negation of boyad may be ambiguous between obligation
and necessity: набояд ин китоб-ро хонанд I ju_.1 "i S j^l j_jI_
xkSl either ‘they must not read this book’ or ‘they need not/ do not
have to...’ (the default reading). This may be disambiguated as follows.
(1) Shifting the negative prefix to the dependent verb specifies obligation
(not to, i.e., prohibition): бояд ин китоб-ро на-хонанд j-jU
j a '	~ < j_il ‘they must not...’; замин-ро бояд на-
фурухт .-.Ajj а xjLi Ijjj-J_____о j‘one must not sell one’s land;
land must/ should/ may not be sold’ (набояд... фурухт ... xjL-jJ
jj-s ‘one need not...’).
(2) A periphrasis using an adjective such as лозим даркор
jLS jj , or зарур ‘necessary’ (modifying the activity; see
below) often implies self-assessed need as distinct from imposed
obligation: лозим нест ки имруз кор кунам <r>... j‘i j* j^
л jl_£ jjj—о I or имруз кор кардан-ам даркор не jjj—ol
£ jl__£ ‘I don’t have to/ need to work today’;
рубоихо-ро чудо кардани мо зарур Lo la-^ I jLa^Lj
jjj______‘we must separate the ruba’is’ (‘our separating., [is]
necessary’); мо пеш аз он ки чй гуна барпо карда шудан-и
дар-и регхона-ро тасвир намоем, лозим аст, ки хонан-
дагон-ро ба худ-и регхона шинос кунем jl	I—«
f	' j । J j jJ «3*1—“•	k? _>-?
- .'< ar.l •.<i \l A<_.J Jj A ; IjjL^xlSlj-A. <t_S cu—I ‘before we
describe how the door of the Regkhona was installed, we must
first acquaint readers with the Regkhona itself’.
(3) The adjective мадбур jj.i ? л ‘obliged, forced’ (modifying the
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agent) implies imposed obligation: онх,о мадбур нестанд ки
ин китоб-ро хонанд lj. .1 ~.< j_jl <_$ л‘.~.jj j „ Lpl
a-^lj------a. or ба хондан-и ин китоб-ро мадбур нестанд
а‘Г1 mi _i'i jj j ?.,л I j i__iLjX j_>I jailj_k_i ‘they don’t have to/ are
not obliged to read this book’; имруз мадбур-ам cap-и кор
равам jj jl£ j-^ j»jj.??-n ‘today I have to/ am obliged
to go to work’.
Obligation in the past may be expressed by the same Present tense
бояд xjLj, or the Simple Past боист ci. o, _>U, or the Durative Past
ме-боист .z-ци. ‘it was necessary’, followed by the Imperfect
tense of the dependent verb: вай бояд/ боист/ мебоист хона мерафт
cjj j jj-» «Cili. ,-1и1_|1_ц-а\ <Ti4x.jl_>\ djl_> ^j ‘he had to go home’.
The last two versions of this could, however, be ambiguous with
the formally identical counterfactual conditional structure: вай боист/
мебоист хона мерафт cu-bj^ <lsLA.............1	- - »\ .....I  ^j ‘he
should /ought to go home; he should have gone/ ought to have gone
home’. A time adverb may distinguish the tense (meboist diriiz xona
meraft ‘yesterday he had to... I should have...’), but without other
contextual information the ambiguity between actual and virtual action
remains. The same circumlocutions may help:
(1) Мачбур шуд ки хона равад jjj csLk jj-? ? a or 6a
хона рафтан мадбур шуд jj ? ? п j <t_,LA <(_i‘he had
to/ was obliged to go home’ (and did); ба хона рафтан-аш
лозим/ даркор буд jj_> j(£jj \(* ph <c>Lk_i ‘he had to/
needed to go home’ (‘his going home was necessary’; cf. 4.15,
Complement nominalization). This last formulation does not state
categorically (even in English) that he did go home; further
contextual information may be needed.
(2) Such periphrases confirm the actuality of the event; the sentence
with meboist... will be read as virtual (unreal, conditional) by
default, and this in turn may be confirmed by an Indicative tense
tag, as in: (ме)боист хона мерафт, аммо на-рафт/ на-шуд
а . п ‘1 \cu-a jJi La I	‘he ought to have
gone home, but didn’t/ it didn’t happen’, (ме)боист хона мерафт,
лекин хатман намеравад/ дил-аш на-мехох;ад il_i(1_f-a)
ailjA^j-аД tjiJa \jjj^j-oJ; I	«cLj-аjjj-a <LSLk‘he should
SYNTAX
333
go home, but of course he won’t/ he doesn’t want to’.
Future necessity or obligation is expressed by means of the Imperfect
мебоист - -I » in its role as the Conditional tense (past future)
‘it would be/ would have been necessary’. For a possibility as viewed
from the present, the dependent verb is in the Present Subjunctive:
семент-и ба канал даркорй мебоист дар як мураббаъ сентиметр
140 кило фишор-ро бардорад	j-J	»j ы
jjljj_> Ijjl Л ь jI • j ~ j л  а Л । jj ‘the cement
necessary for the canal will have to/ must/ should/ bear a pressure of
140 kg. per square cm.’.
For a future eventuality as reported from a past situation, the tense
of the dependent verb will be the Conditional (past future): як одам-и
хат-у саводнок-ро ёфтан даркор буд, ки вай мебоист гуфтахо-и
Нарзи-ро ба руи когаз менавишт Ij^UjIj—« j .kA
d-clX cSJj-e Ijls jj-j cgt-Д « ~ ouJ j j-д <-$ .dj_j jL£jd (IA-sL
j ’ -« ‘we had to find someone who knew how to read and write,
to/ who could write down on paper what Narzi said’ (note the ellipsis
of the suffix -nok in xat[-nok]-u savod-nok ‘capable of reading and
[capable of] writing’).
Adjectives and adverbs. Majbur, lozim, zarur, and darkor as illustrated
above may function in any tense, affirmative or negative. Darkor is
especially frequent in spoken and informal styles; in the Present, the
copula is often omitted: хами(н) гахвора-пуш-а шустан даркор,
чиркин шудас	< jLSjd
‘this cradle-cover needs to be washed, it’s gotten dirty’ (‘to wash this
cradle-cover [is] necessaiy’, with object-marker -ro); дар хусус-и он
чиз маълумот-и кутох-е додан-ам даркор (аст) jT A. jj
...I) jLS jj ^Jdld	oil—»jJ-«—о j .ха. ‘I must provide a few
particulars about that matter’ (‘my giving... [is] necessary’).
Modal Adverbials: Several adverbs and adverbial phrases express
necessity, obligation, or more accurately force majeure, qualifying any
appropriate VP: ман ночор сабр кардам (»d_>_$ j	ф-о ‘I
had to wait’ (‘I waited without recourse’); бой но-илоч, як асп-и
нагз-и худ-ро пешкаш дода-аст Ijdj-A J-iS <_
I 6dld ат.<л. i  ‘the rich man was obliged to give one of his good
horses as tribute’ (‘without cure, gave...’); ароба-каш чор-ночор
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розй шуда-аст 6 д_Л j jUL-jL	<_.!j_c ‘the coach-
man was forced to accept/ agreed perforce’; дунарманд-е... дод-у
ноход ба тасвир-и замон ва дамзамондо-и худ мепардозад
Jj—a. <jLjl—oj. л Д> j jjl—oj j_.j ,^а ~| 1 alj-AL. j alj—Л. .. (_jjj_oj-iA
J j I Jjj (j-л ‘an artist... whether he likes it or not/ willy-nilly sets himself
to depict his own time and his contemporaries’ (Stem I of xostan, cf.
4.23); у мадбуран далок шудааст ej-u.1 а д-Л I jj  -. ~ jl ‘he
must (surely) have perished’ (‘...of necessity has perished’).
4.21 Presumption, Probability, Possibility
There is an imprecise sliding scale between the poles of confident
assertion about the status of an action one cannot perceive, or have
perceived, through reasonable prediction to tentative speculation. At
right angles to this, the poles of affirmation and negation do not
correspond across the scale: ‘impossible’ is stronger than ‘improbable’,
while ‘possible’ is weaker then ‘probable’. Tajik has an array of devices
to match these variations, which are remarkably analogous to those of
English.
‘Must be’: The presumption of probability about a state or a completed
past action is regularly expressed by the defective impersonal
verb бояд jjL, followed by the Present or Perfect Subjunctive as
appropriate: модар бояд дар хона бошад «C.LA jj xjL эд1_о
д_Л1_. ‘mother must be at home’; бояд то доло расида бошанд
д ЛЬ йл j ^L^. U д-jU ‘they must have arrived by now’.
Colloquially, даркор jISji (4.20) may substitute for boyad, after
the VP: ондо дар род бошанд даркор д'. ЛЬ alj jj I_________рТ
jLS jj ‘they must be on the way’; рафта бошанд даркор a -
jl£ jj ' !  ‘they must have gone’.
The present tense of the dependent verb may only be stative or
progressive. Apart from the verb ‘to be’ (especially frequent are
prepositional phrases with copula, as illustrated above), only the
Present Progressive (Subjunctive) tense is usual: ондо бояд хеле
ran зада истода бошанд ад1_г. ц._.1 адз 5 о U. A д_>1_. I рТ
д'. Л1_. ‘they must be talking a lot’.
‘Will be’: A presumption of identity, concerning a person or place just
SYNTAX
335
perceived through indirect evidence, or an inference of location,
may be expressed with the Definite Future tense of the verb ‘to
be’: x.a, ин Ахмаддон хохад буд jла1jA jLa.j.a-J .1л
‘ah, this/ that will be Ahmadjon’ (on hearing an expected knock at
the door, or the telephone ring); ин до Калоновод хохад буд
jxaIj-А jLi JiLA I ? ‘this will be Kalonobod’ (on seeing
signs of settlement over a rise in the road); агар хона нарафта
бошад, дар китобхона хохад буд jj LLo«isLi. j_Sl
jал1 jA <tALk_>l"A ‘if she hasn’t gone home, she will be in the
library’ (i.e., I presume she is there now; cf. 4.35, Actual conditions).
‘Should be; probably’: The preceding constructions cover an action
just accomplished (Perfect) and a present-future state of affairs.
The remaining parts of the aspecto-temporal continuum (present,
future, and past punctual or habitual) are partially covered, for
present and future, by one of the three tenses of the Conjectural
Mood (3.30-33, in Tajik siga-i ehtimoli ‘mood of probability’): у
xap руз газета-ро ме-хондагист lj<--------------Д-jJ---S Jjj j_a jl
-.... jC c.I‘I’ll bet he reads the paper every day’; то бахор
сохта тамом мекардагистем	^1—«А а—Д—АЛ—ш _,1—$_> L
-	X ijA ‘we should finish building it by spring’ (for both, cf.
3.32). The remaining Conjectural tenses essentially duplicate the
coverage afforded by boyad\ cf. the synonymous sentences: ягон
кор-и ганда кардагист о... j >A бдДА jLA jlA_j and бояд
ягон кор-и ганда карда бошад £ ьзаА jL£ JtA_j jjL
xAL ‘he must have done something bad’.
Modal idioms and adverbials: The remaining possibilities are covered
by the idiom эхтимол дорад (ки) (<A) jjlj Jl n ->l ‘there is
the probability that’ and the modal adverbial (ба) эхтимол
JI a - -vl ‘in probability, probably’ (the tanvin adverb ^1 A J
ehtemalan is not used in Tajik, as it is in SP). Both the modal
idiom and the adverbial require the Subjunctive (Present for present
or future reference, Past for past): эхтимол дорад (ки) ба зуди
баргардем	jJ_> (мА) j jIj JLa-J ‘we will probably
return soon’; эхтимол раъд-у барк шавад jjj j xtj Jl A-J
jj__A ‘there’ll likely be thunder and lightning’; ба эхтимол дар
хайрат хам монда бошанд, ки... чаро амир, ба сифат-и
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елчи-и давлат чунин як шахс-...po интихоб намуда-аст
<" । .fl < 4-» i t J J ‘ I I . 4Д£ < J 7 i'i'i I—1 6 J-j I—о lZj j—*-a. j d J। л L
CU-lJ bJjj-aJi a-T'il I J..a^ 4 ,7, LL Jy-Ao. oj jd	Г probab-
ly they wondered... why the emir had chosen such a... person to
be the state ambassador’.
Another pertinent sentence adverbial is аз афт-и кор/ (аз)
афт-аш ‘probably, by the look of things’ (2.46): афт-аш имруз
намебиёяд	Jjj_J at, а Г he probably isn’t coming
today’.
Possibility: ‘Perhaps, maybe’ is rendered most commonly by шояд
xj!—ii, like boyad a defective impersonal verb (from шоистан
ф-Т ... .1 Л.Чо be fitting, right’; the past tense is no longer used). It
generally takes the Present (Progressive) Subjunctive with present
or present-future reference, the Past Subjunctive with past or past-
future reference; the negative prefix is attached to the dependent
verb: шояд душ кабул карда истода бошад	i
j_iL> ftjl т ,„jl	‘perhaps he’s taking a shower’; шояд
ин ч,о наёяд djL-L I д. 7 j I a-jLi ‘maybe she won’t come here’;
хамсояхо шояд ин кор-ро карда бошанд ajLi La4 d ... л л
xLil_>	I j jl£ j-jl ‘perhaps the neighbors did this’; шояд то
холо хоб рафта бошад xiL	u_JjA ^’L (Д j_iLi ‘maybe
he will have fallen asleep by now’.
Often, with present-future reference, the dependent verb is in
the Present Indicative (as is usual in SP): шояд баъд аз ин...
адина барин аз чашм гайб мезанад 4_ц.1 ...ф-Я Jl х»-. xjLi
jSJjj-x с JI (Jjj-j ‘perhaps from now on... the jinn-like
creature will be invisible’; шояд як сабаб-и махрумият-и мо
аз он аст, ки... .oL jT jl La .-Л *-> л  lL jjLL
...<_£ ‘perhaps one cause of our deprivation is that...’ (Sentential
pronoun; see 4.15).
The adverb магар j л (4.8) may translate as ‘perhaps’ in
some affirmative questions and statements: магар ту хам медонй?
^Д jJL ‘maybe you know too?’; as акогуё
‘one might say, conceivably’: боз як хонача-е буд, ки гуё
барои ошхона, хезумхона ва анбор сохта шуда буд JL
jl—1Д| j <Д1А J л & <4 71 t7,T I U71А - 5 .
SYNTAX
337
j6j_di	‘there was another small room, which had per-
haps been built as a kitchen and store for firewood and things’.
The adjective мумкин n n ‘possible’ and the cognate noun
имкон jL-S—al ‘possibility’ (also its extension имконият
.r.ij are used to introduce sentential complements: мумкин
аст ки борон борад jjL jl jL <£ j^-a-a'it may rain’ (‘it
is possible that...’; Persian style, with dependent Subjunctive, cf.
4.15); барвадт-тар ба он до расидан мумкин нест/ на/ не
<С\ cLu-u-a ~i п	I ~it_i jj-lit is not possible
to get there earlier’ (Turkic style; cf. 4.15). Similarly, имкон/
имконият на-дорад (ки) ин додиса-ро навишта тирам
j ' 4 Т	jj-il	~ 1 * '15 лI \ ц IX <11 ‘it’s
impossible for me to write down this episode’ (‘there is not the
possibility that...’); ин додиса-ро навишта гирифтан-ам
имкон/ имконият надорад fl j 4—□ 1 IJ 42jL-^
jjljJi _ '! < л I \ jl < aI ‘ditto’ (‘my writing down... has no
possibility’; Turkic style).
For emphasis, these constructions may support a negative in
each clause: на-рафтан-атон мумкин не! J's л n jl
‘it’s impossible for you not to go!’.
4.22 Ability
‘Can’, etc., is expressed by the fully inflected verb тавонистан/ тавон-
“61 u~ '1Ibe able’ (orig. ‘to be strong, mighty’); colloquial-
ly, the present stem may be reduced to -ton-, e.g., na-me-ton-ad ‘he
can’t’. Three personal constructions are available.
(1)	The ^-complement clause (4.15; usually omitting ki), with the
dependent verb in the Present Subjunctive: (ман) метавонам ба
он ч,о равам jj I 7 *4 	(d-“) ‘I can go there’, etc.; ki
is often retained if there is intervening material before the dependent
verb: на-тавонистем ки баъд аз тамом шудан-и тамошо ба
хона-и рафидон-и худ расем	JI	jSS
, . ...j jl a  ‘aj a ~J k , LiLtS'we weren’t able to get to (our)
friends’ house after the show’.
(2)	The nominalization of the dependent clause as an Infinitive (phrase):
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(ман) ба он до рафтан метавонам	I ? 'J . (j.»)
. This is not Turkic-style (4.15), except perhaps in its
word order; it corresponds in essence to early CP constructions
using the Short or Long Infinitives.
(3)	The preferred Tajik idiom preposes the Past Participle I/ gerund
form of the dependent verb in a Conjunct construction: (ман) ба
он цо рафта метавонам ^1	I > 3L-j (j-»)- These
last two are very similar, and indeed this conjunct form may have
derived from the Infinitive construction.
The complement clause or phrase is thus quite standardized, and its
components appear in the same relative order in all three variants: the
Subjunctive verb comes at the end, after any objects, prepositional
phrases or adverbials; the Infinitive or participle/ gerund preposes all
its adjuncts, and immediately precedes the finite form of tavonistan:
‘you can’t pick this vegetable by hand’ becomes (1) ту наметавонй
{ин сабзи-ро ба даст чини} <ш lJLgJ j ...	>>
> or (2, 3) ту {ин сабзи-ро ба даст чиндан/ чинда} наме-
тавонй	{йа'| iy I a.	I	jjjl
The predicate may be extended by inserting one or more serial
participle gerunds before the finite form of tavonistan'. у кор-ро монда
рафта на-метавонист .г.^, \1 о a j IjjLS jl‘he could
not go away leaving/ and leave the job unfinished’. The modal auxiliary
may assume virtually any active tense or mood; some examples:
Present and Future: As with most verbs, the Present tense of tavonistan
generally serves for the future too. However, if a distinction needs
to be made, there is nothing to preclude use of the Definite Future
tense (3.14): доле пул-аш-ро дода наметавонам, пагод датман
ходам тавонист I_______» ~	б1х_> <^Д>1I
'!^_лIj-А ‘I can’t pay for it now, (but) I definitely will be
able to tomorrow’ (note gapping of the dependent verb).
Past tenses: The Simple Past usually expresses ability, or inability, to
perform a punctual past action : оё шумо соат-и 5 омада
на-тавонистед? S лj~~Jj-lj	..-ixU L^i LI ‘were you
not able to come at five o’clock?’ This distinguishes clearly between
a past reality and a future possibility, as expressed by the Conditional
tense: оё шумо соат-и 5 омада наме-тавонистед? I л Л. LI
SYNTAX
339
Sj _i "i ц,'11 уз t 6j_oT 0 ciuJ ц. ‘couldn’t you come at five
o’clock?’ (which, like its English equivalent, is likely to be taken
for a suggestion referring to the future, not a question about the
past). For, as in the case of meboist (4.20), the Imperfect has the
functions both of a Durative Past (3.13) and a Conditional (4.36),
and may be used in its Durative Past aspect to emphasize a prolonged
state of being able or unable to do something: албатта хеч кор
кардан наме-тавонистам, ва чй будан-и дард-и уро наме-
донистам jjj i 4_а. j ।и *i 1уз л 1 j" Л
____uxJiL Ijjl ‘of course I could do nothing, and did not
know what his sickness was’ (the second clause confirms the
setting as a past narrative).
The Pluperfect denotes an action completed before the current
moment in a past narrative: ...ба гайр аз як манзил-нишин,
ки {на тотор, на арманй будан-и у}-ро то хануз Коваленко
дуруст чудо карда натавониста буд,... . £ । jl j____u____»_>
jj-j-й Lj	I < jlSlS <l_L] «I-S <(j_j—i_3 Jj-i-a
jj_j d	~.lyi_j	Id-». j*s ~i IjL£ ‘...besides one lodger, whom
Kovalenko had so far not been able to place as either a Tatar or an
Armenian...’ (‘...to distinguish his being neither Tatar nor
Armenian’).
Non-Witnessed mode: вай тодикй ran зада натавониста-аст
...I d~...-.I уз_з	‘he couldn’t speak Tajik (so far
as I know/ so I am told)’ (Perfect, 3.21).
Progressive tenses: аз кор даст кашида на-тавониста истода-анд
д!I л <1".... .1 d ...'.Ij ~f.,*  л.<	...л jl£ jl ‘they are unable to
stop working’ (3.18).
Non-finite forms: The Infinitive of tavonistan may participate in Turkic-
style nominalizations: Хасан барои зада натавонистан-аш он
мург-и шум-ро афсус хурда... от. ~i~ ...‘Jyi-j &	о"*-*
u..j  «I lj^»j	jl ‘Hasan regretted (his) not
having been able to hit that bird of ill omen, and...’ (4.15). Past
Participle I appears in serial coordinates (4.19): ман дар он до
кас-е ёфта на-тавониста хона баргашта омадам у у-а
Л d э: «di. dIузз> <l3_sL U„X I 'J‘not being able
to find anyone there, I came back home’.
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Like boyad, the auxiliary tavonistan supports impersonal expressions
(strictly, universal expressions, since it is not an impersonal verb to
start with). In these (judged as literary in register) the stem forms are
used without personal ending, ме-тавон j Iyi for present sequence
and (ме)тавонист .z. ... 'J(<_,-») for past sequence, with negative
prefix if appropriate; the Short Infinitive replaces the Subjunctive, in a
modified Active voice two-sentence formulation: метавон ба осонй
ин кор-ро ич,ро намуд jIj^.1 I jjLS 3-J	jlj~,  /this
task can easily be carried out’ (‘one can...’;); онгох на-метавонист
гап-и мо-ро фадмид $ a ljU> с.... '.Iг> Ki Г‘then it
would not be possible to understand what we said/ we would not be
intelligible’.
The Passive is hardly ever used in the complement of tavonistan.
The impersonal construction above, though grammatically Active, is
semantically the equivalent of a Passive. In some cases the Passive
alone is equivalent to an English rendition using ‘can’: хамин тавр
шумо дида (на-)мешавед	I п Л. J3d= J j -
this, you can(not) be seen’ (lit. ‘are (not) seen/ visible’). Moreover,
compound adjectives meaning ‘capable of being [done]’ may readily
be found or coined: хурданй	‘edible’ (3.42), шикаст-
(но-)паззир	.zi ... S Л, ‘(un)conquerable’ (5.6), вайрон-
на-шаванда j-is 6^3 ‘indestructible’ (3.41), etc.
As an Active voice periphrasis, the adjective к,одир jjl____2 ‘able,
capable’ may be used, in more formal style: у ба ич,ро-и ин кор
к,одир аст с^х.1	^1 jl ‘he is capable of carrying
out this task’.
4.23 Volition
The inflected modal auxiliary хостан/ ход- -_л1 j— 1 l‘to
wish, want, request’ (negated with the prefix на—_i) may be construed
in one of two ways.
(1) With a ^-complement clause (4.15), the dependent verb in the
Present Subjunctive; the complementizer ki is usually omitted unless
there is a change of subject: (ман) мехохам уро бинам/ бу-бинам
». Д р •>_! j I_,jf р_а>1 (cj-o) ‘I want to see him’; мехостем
SYNTAX
341
ки онхо мехмон бошанд jl »р л L^T <-S »	...lj k  .
‘we wanted them to be (our) guests’ (‘that they be...’).
The Imperfect tense may function not only as a general past,
but as a Conditional; this mostly occurs in the context of a polite
request, which is further marked by the retention of ki: пеш аз
cap шудан-и мадлис мехостем, ки як чиз-ро пурсида
гирем I _>J_^	4-S	jl
j_.x.‘before the meeting starts we’d like to request
something’. The Simple Past xost-am, etc., is not used in either of
these senses (see below).
(2) A preposed Infinitive (phrase) as NP object complement (not
Turkic-style, since it lacks a subject pronominal and object marker;
as in the case of boyad and tavonistan, the Long or Short Infinitive,
postposed, expressed the complement VP of modal auxiliaries in
early СР): (ман) уро дидан мехохам Jj—jj IjjI (o—=>)
p_a>lj 4 j л ‘I want to see him’; бачахо бозй кардан на-мехост-
анд j~i~i	csjL lA<t_a_i‘the children did not want
to play’. However, if the subject in the complement is different,
this formulation has to be “Turkic-style” (though the NP syntax is
still irreproachably Persian, with izofat and Definite direct object
enclitic): мехмон шудан-и онхо-ро мехостем Л. jl  д -
p._i " mlI ‘we wanted them to be (our) guests’ (‘we
wanted their being guests’).
A depersonalized idiom may be summoned in order to express an
affective nuance: дил-ам мехохад як бор-и дигар у-ро бинам
-> '1 j j I jjl jLij jl_>	хд>1 jA, y-o ‘I long to see her once more’ (‘my
heart wishes...’); бо хама-и ин дил-ам на-мехост аз шносо шудан
бо ин одам... умед-ам-ро тамоман канам	Jj—>I Z___o-А Ь
La I л I I Л 1 a I . ..^jl Jj—11 La Jjil <"> lull i »7i д l<" ।	( a i all this
notwithstanding, I was reluctant totally to give up hope of getting to
know this person’ (‘my heart did not wish...’); у ба xap хонна-е ки
дил-аш мехост, бе-бок-она медаромад piJj c5I<lU>. jl
д_а1	у» ‘she could freely enter any house
she wished/ fancied’.
The punctual tenses of xostan have an aspectually distinct set of
meanings: ‘to ask (for), request, demand’ (ciz-e-ro az kas-e ‘s.t. from
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s.o.’); ‘to call, summon, invite’ (s.o., trans.). This is so whether they
govern a NP object or a VP complement: (аз шумо) узр меходам
bjJ j j - jlx. (I л j, J I) ‘I beg (your) pardon’, бояд аввал идозат
хост	Jjl djL> ‘one must first ask permission’, маро
ба медмонй на-хостанд j'i~> ...IjAl a ? I^‘they didn’t invite
me to the party’; бачадо хостанд ки бозй кунанд La4----------=>_>
।	...I‘the children asked to play/ if they could
play’ (not me-xostand ki... ‘wanted to...’). Only the Simple Past is
overtly and unambiguously punctual; for the Present and other multi-
aspectual forms, this distinction is clarified by grammatical and lexical
context.
From a derived action noun, ходит <_Дл1 jA ‘wish, request’ (3.38)
is made an unambiguous Composite verb, ходит кардан Jl-л Ij—1
ja‘to ask, request’: (аз шумо) ходит мекунаем, ки папирос
накашед j_i Л.S j ^1 j-x-l-i «р	jl) T ask you/
I’m asking you/ not to smoke (cigarettes)’.
The verb пурсидан   ..j_. ‘to ask (a question/ for information)’
may also connote ‘to request’ (unlike its use in SP): мард аз у гугард
пурсид < » j_> j-S jl jl	man asked him for a light’ (lit.
‘sulfur’, i.e., a match; az governs the indirect object, as with xostan).
4.24 The Verb Sudan
The fully inflected verb шудан/ шав—j-4>\ ja-1 ‘to happen, come
into being, become’ presents no morphological or orthographic
problems. Its most salient grammatical function is as the Passive Voice
auxiliary verb (3.34). It also has a number of other roles, as a modal
verb and in a variety of aspectually marked idioms, which it will be
useful to examine in one place.
Modal: The 3rd person singular of Sudan is used impersonally in any
of its four simple tenses (3.9-13), to mean ‘it [is] possible, one can/
might’, etc. As with the modals boyad and tavonistan, the dependent
verb takes the form of the Short Infinitive, and the sentence is Active
in voice: ме-шавад ин кор-ро кард IjjLS j-J	‘one
can do this [work]/ this can/ may be done/ is feasible’. However,
Sudan is formally and semantically distinct from tavonistan, in that (1)
SYNTAX
343
The suppressed subject in metavon ‘one can’ is personal, whereas
mesavad is strictly impersonal; the sentence given above means ‘it
comes about [for one] to do this’, and (2) The ability expressed by
tavonistan is that proper to living creatures (tavon- still retains a sense
of its primitive meaning ‘be strong’); sudan (in origin meaning ‘to go,
proceed’) implies not so much physical as logistical or moral feasibility.
Examples: на-ме-шавад ба он ч,о рафт cj-b j jl~s^‘ it
is impossible to go there, one cannot go there’; ме-шуд гуфт, ки...
...<l$ .e-ii biyj ‘one might say that...’ (Conditional tense); дар он
рузхо на-ме-шуд озодона сухбат кард j__________Д LaJjj jT _>j
j./i «CiljIjT ‘in those days one couldn’t talk freely’ (Durative
Past); агар на-шавад чунин кор-ро кард, бошад 4j-SI
. jI j jLS ‘if such a thing cannot be done, so be it’ (Subjunct-
ive, in a Possible conditional); хохиш бошад, дама кор буд ме-шавад
jLS <t_^ .	j-A ‘if it is wished, anything may
(come to) be’ (the Short Infinitive of budan-, as in the preceding example,
the infinitive usually follows the tensed form of sudan, but may be
embedded before it for emphasis).
Aspectual: In all other usages, sudan in one way or another expresses
a coming into being, a change of state, an accomplishment of an act; it
is in explicit or implicit contrast with the verb to be, as this expresses
stasis and continuity (хает ‘it is/ there is (some), нест .-
‘it isn’t/ there is none’). The simplest of such constructions is the
impersonal absolute (without short infinitive): мешавад?—мешавад/
намешавад aj	\j-Sa^-^^‘can it be done/ does it
work/ will it do? — Yes/ No’.
This kind of litany, in different tenses and contexts, can test the
feasibility or establish the success or failure of one’s tying a large
bundle on top of a bus, solving a quadratic equation, arranging a
meeting, or virtually anything else. It may fit syntactically in a more
explicit context: интавр мекардед, асло намешуд jj k 'i >1
,> Л yL-al < jjj^‘if you did it like this, it definitely wouldn’t
work’; ман ба Маскав рафтанй будам, лекин нашуд <_>
,< л.I Ц’Г|	л ‘I intended to/ was supposed to/ was
ready to go to Moscow, but it didn’t come off’.
With a subject such as an interrogative or indefinite pronoun, an
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event, or a natural phenomenon, Sudan means ‘to happen, to take
place’: чй шуд? S а .Ь -u ‘what happened? What’s the matter?’; хеч
нашуд/ насудааст -> 	\\а«\ g‘nothing happened/ nothing
is amiss (so far as I know [Non-Witnessed])’; баъд чй мешавад?
S jj .7, a « . ‘what happens/ will happen next?’; мачдис пагох
мешавад aj____&LL I ___________о ‘the meeting takes place/ will take
place tomorrow’; шом шуд a_4 j*L4 ‘evening fell’; эхтимол раъд-у
бард шавад 3j_> j xxj Jl ~ ‘there will likely be thunder
and lightning’; сахт борон мешавад a^1 jLi cuA—« ‘there
will be heavy rain’. If the verb ‘to rain’ were used here, the Present
Indicative (boron) me-borad would have the default reading ‘it is
raining’; only me-savad automatically denotes the future. Of a known
entity that has disappeared or changed: Ахмад чй шуд(а-аст)? a_^.l
<?(-. ...I б)a Д ‘what happened/ has happened to Ahmad? What
became of Ahmad?’ (the longer variant is the Non-Witnessed Perfect,
which would be used, e.g., with the implication ‘I know you haven’t
seen him either, but...’; see 3.21).
In describing or evaluating a situation, (Tajik) Persian prefers to
focus where possible on the act or change of state that brought the
situation into being, whereas English prefers to focus on the resulting
state (hence the literal mismatch between Tajik ‘happen, become’ and
English ‘be’): такдир-и онхо ба ихтиёр-и шумо мешавад ^иаЛЗ
.7, » л I „ ,7. jl . Al , Lpf ‘their fate will be in your hands’ (i.e.,
through a certain development, the addressee will become the master
of these people’s fate; to affirm that he ‘is’ so thereafter misses a
logical step). The same preferences are evident in everyday idioms:
ман монда шудам ^*a_A aajLa j_o ‘I am tired’ (lit. ‘I became tired’),
маълум мешавад/ шуд a_4\ aj j*‘it is/ was obvious’ (lit.
‘it becomes [habitual] known/ became known’); hence ман монда
шуда будам ^*аaa_i ftjjLo Т was tired’ (‘had become...’), etc.;
cf. also 3.12, 3.16, 3.46.
For Sudan as an auxiliary with Composite verbs, see 5.18.
SYNTAX
345
4.25 Hortative, Inceptive, and Related Constructions
Hortatives enjoin action by a group including the speaker, and usually
involve the Imperative or optative (Subjunctive) moods. Inceptive (or
inchoative) idioms, denoting the start of an action, are aspectual rather
than modal in nature, though in Tajik one of them involves a modal
auxiliary. Continuing to perform, and ceasing to perform, an action
also involve particular types of sentential complement. This section
will survey a modal-aspectual continuum that may be characterized as
‘let’s do it—nearly did it—barely did it—started to do it—went on
doing it—stopped doing it’.
‘Let’s’: The simple optative or hortative form (1st person Present
Subjunctive, e.g. хурем ‘let’s eat’) is illustrated in 3.29. In
colloquial speech this is often emphasized by preposing certain
frozen Imperative forms, which may then be followed by the 1st
person hortative (sometimes the Indicative) of the main verb: биёед,
бо хам раке мекунем! j Vs	L < ‘come,
we’ll/ let’s dance’ (Imper. of omadan, 3.5); биёед, ки дар хамин
харак шинам j Л. SJ-j-aA jj	i_>‘let me sit on
this bench’; рош/ рошед, хурок тайёр шуда-аст <_>£.I_>
...I ftXui ЭГ. k	‘hurry up/ get a move on, the
meal is ready’ (from (ba) roh sav/ saved ‘get on the road’).
Мон/ монед, (ки) (<_£) 'iL-o\ and би-гузор _,l j£_>
‘let’ are used chiefly with reference to a 3rd person: бигузор
худаш сандида бинед j j a.a j >	‘let him
find out for himself’ (see didan, 5.20). Both these verbs (more
frequently, mondan) mean ‘to let, allow, permit’ with a following
Subjunctive or preceding Infinitive: кудакон-ро наздик шудан
на-мемонданд	jj Ij jl£j_^‘they did not
let the children approach’.
‘Nearly’ ~ ‘hardly’: An action that might well have taken place, but
does not, may be expressed through the idiom кам монда буд
ки.........<£ jj_> 6jAL> ‘little remained (but) that...’, followed by
the Subjunctive: кам монда буд ки автомобиль чаппа шавад
<11^. J-uUlSjl <£ ojsLo ‘the car nearly overturned’.
Another way is to use the adjective-adverbs назкик	or
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кариб ‘near, close’: аз хурсандй к,ариб девона шудам
<Cilзил (_ga.A jl ‘I nearly went crazy with joy’;
миён-и у ба шикастан наздик шуда-аст л. j !_>_<>
cu-uul *‘his middle is [‘has become’] near to bursting’.
More colloquially, a combination of affirmative and negative verbs
may be used: ба хона-и кампир... расам-нарасам, муйсафед...
асо-занон аз пеш мебарояд	j -	~ < а ~.1 к .
jl ф1Д jl г ...jj MiLgj-o ‘just as I reached the
old woman’s house, the old man [‘white-haired’] came up, tapping
his stick’ (i.e., between not reaching and reaching the house;
subjunctive).
The converse, when an action that might not have happened at
all does, if only in small measure, is expressed similarly, with a
negated verb: кариб борон на-борид G jljL <_‘it
barely/ hardly rained’ (‘nearly did not rain’); or, through an adverb
and affirmative verb: ин хона чандон васеъ нест, худамон
ба-зур мегунчднд/ -гунчднд ^  ...j <lsLL
.С'7- 'ir	jLojthis room is not so spaci-
ous; it barely accommodates us’ (lit. ‘...we ourselves hardly [‘by
force’] fit’: gunjidan, var. gunjidan, is intrans. ‘to fit, be
accommodated/ contained (in)’).
‘Start, try’: A conscious decision or movement toward initiating an
action, which is immediately cancelled, forestalled, or interrupted,
is expressed by means of the Simple Past of xostan! xoh- ‘to
want’ with either of the constructions used for volitional comple
ments (4.23): Собир каланд ва чорчуб гирифта, хост ки
биравад jdi-uJjA	j .U.K ‘Sobir
picked up the mattock and frame and made to go’; ба тараф-и
родрав-и давли-и дарун нигод карда рафтан хост j'l~ .
jA-a j	jjjj j-a. jjjbl j ‘he glanced at the
inner corridor of the house and made to leave’; курта-ро Нодир
аз чуй гирифта, хост шуста тоза кунад, аммо об-и лой
он-ро бадтар кард	.4	jl jjLs I j_S
j j_S	I jjT <_Л I—a I	ojLs 4_s ц._^> ‘Nodir took the
shirt from the ditch and started/ tried to wash it clean, but the
muddy water made it worse’ (the serial participle шуста 4 "» ... л.
SYNTAX
347
stands for Present Subjunctive шуяд ‘ [that] he might wash
[it]’, parallel to toza kunad ‘...clean [it]’).
‘Begin’: The most general idiom to denote the actual beginning of an
action (not necessarily intentional, or of an animate agent) uses
гирифтан j3_s‘to take, seize’ as auxiliary, with the main verb
preposed as an Infinitive: сароянда суруд-ро хондан гирифт
ejjj-S jjJilI jjjj-u	‘the singer began to sing the
song’; аз чашмон-аш ашкдо рехтан гирифтанд	jl
<>jS.	l(|< л.1 ‘tears started to flow from her eyes’; шумо
кор-и худатон-ро кардан гиред jjj_£ I j jL3j^_i. I л Л.
,* ‘you get on with your own work’. (This should not be
confused with Conjunct verb idioms using giriftan and a participle-
gerund, such as навишта гирифтан jt ij_S <t—‘to write
down, copy’; 5.20).
Of similarly broad application is the Composite verb шуруъ
кардан	£ jj-4> to begin’, which either preposes, or embeds,
an Infinitive or action noun plus the preposition ba: Мунаввиршод
ба навиштан шуруъ кард jf j j—*4
‘Munavvir-shoh began writing/ to write’; насим-и субди-дам
шуруъ ба вазидан намуд jj-a-Ljau •, $ «и f
‘the early morning breeze began to blow’.
Denoting intentional actions and construed similarly with ba
are даромадан/ дарой-	_,j\ jj—о I jj ‘to enter (upon)’ and
cap кардан JJj—j________{sar ‘head, beginning): дозир ба ran
(задан) ме-дарояд j-Л jJ^ (jjj) <-> j <sl ‘now he’ll
start talking/ launch into a speech’; ба даре (хондан) cap карданд
aJjj-S j_____ (jxJj <) gh *4 ‘they began the lesson/ started
class’. These tend to be used in standard locutions. Of broader
application are: даст ба [кор-е] задан jjJ [^jL^] <_> oj-^j ‘to
set about [doing s.t.]’ (lit. ‘set [one’s] hand to’); and the more
literary пардохтан/ пардоз- -jljj^X j"	Ijj-j(likewise with
the prepositional phrase, ba and an Infinitive or action noun) in
the sense ‘to undertake, engage in, go in for, take up, pursue’ a
regular or long-term activity: ба пажудиш-и илмй пардохт <_>
ц « I ит, ьjj_j ‘he commenced/ undertook scientific
research’.
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‘Continue, last’: As a transitive verb, again with ba and Infinitive or
action noun as the complement, is давом кардан jf । j J , lit.
‘make continuity’: у ба гап-аш давом кард fl jj
‘he went on with his talk’; the same verb (or a variant with
the auxiliary доштан J7i. .Mj‘to have’) may be used intransitive-
ly, the activity or state being the subject: борон давом кард
jj—£ fl jj jljL> the rain continued’, мадлис як соат давом
дошт dxjilj fl j j oxLa -Х-j o.. I ? n ‘the meeting went on for/
lasted one hour’.
‘Stop’ (intr.): For an activity to cease is тамом шудан j < л, fl
‘become complete(d)’; this has a transitive correlative in тамом
кардан jjj__S fl—&S: дарс-ро тамом карданд fl________________LS IjchjJ
jLjj_£ ‘they finished the lesson/ class’. ‘To reach a conclusion,
come to an end’ is, quite literally, ба поён расидан jUL, <_>
Jj—j—cuj, with a transitive correlative in [кор-е-]ро ба поён
расондан j jJL^j jUL «u I	‘to put an end to, termin-
ate, finish off, conclude [an activity]’: мадлис-ро баъд аз ду
соат ба поён расонданд jLLa_> cu_cLjj jl j_» lJa..i^. -
jJj-iLuj j ‘they brought the meeting to an end after two hours’.
‘Stop’ (tr.): To stop performing a habitual or repeated act: фир-
ебгари-ро/ фиребидан-ро бас мекунад \l JLgj.X j jj____________________s
J.1S	I j j j_j_i_jj_a ‘he will stop deceiving [us]/ leave off
his tricks’ (bas ‘enough’; as an interjection, ‘enough, stop!’); or,
using a prepositional phrase with аз jl ‘from’: агк,исса гуфтан/
киссагуй даст кашид cu-^j	J~a<	» jl
‘he stopped/ gave up telling stories’; also with the patient of an
unwelcome action (the action being implicit): аз мо даст
намекашад j Л.S 1_ra-L La jl‘he won’t leave us alone/ stop
bothering us’. For a machine, etc., to stop (working) is аз кор
мондан j jJiLo jL£ jl (also for a person); to break down (mach-
ines and systems) is вайрон шудан Jj_______jI_>_jj (с^- SPxarah
Sudan).
The main transitive verb ‘to stop, keep, prevent, prohibit’ s.o.
from doing s.t. is нигох, доштан j_3__________ilj aL^_L(see 3.8):
чурах,ояш-ро аз рафтори бад нигох, медорад I
jJlj(_J_a &l£s j_. jl_T- a j jl ‘he stops his friends misbehaving’;
SYNTAX
349
more forceful, ‘to prohibit, forbid’, with a following Subjunctive:
манъ карданд ки равад jj j <t_S	‘they stopped him
going’; монеъ шудан j-SLo ‘to stop, prevent’ (lit. ‘become
a hindrance’) is similarly used of non-human obstacles.
In spoken Tajik such phrases may be used paratactically: ino-ya
man kunit, na-ravan, to rais omadan-as istan (= инхо-ро манъ
кунед, нараванд, то раис омадан-аш истанд Ijl_________________
L <	< j j'X) ‘stop these men leaving
till the boss gets here’ (lit. ‘prevent them, let them not leave, let
them stay until the boss’s arrival’; the last NP is topicalized, cf.
2.30,4.1).
‘Not to let’ (cf. ‘let’, above) may be construed with a following
subordinate clause, usually introduced by ki (a purpose clause; see
4.40): (ба у) рох/ рухсат надоданд ки равад ьI_> (jL-j)
jjj <l£ jSjIjS	‘they did not let him go’.
The adjective-adverb дигар jLj ‘other’, with a negated verb,
announces that this action or state has ceased: вай дигар индо
намеояд u I \.l	‘he no longer comes here’.
SUBORDINATE CLAUSES: PREPOSED
4.26 General
A complex sentence may consist of one main and one subordinate
clause, or more than one of either or each, e.g.: дар канор-и ч,уйдо
нидолдо-и навхез сабзида бошанд дам,, аз-бас-ки дануз падлу
кушода бисьёр соя-дор нашуда буданд,2 аз тобиш-и офтоб...
тофтан-и об-и равон-ро монеъ намешуданд3 La^j—a. jLlS _,j
6jl ul! J I (j _i j J \ A 4 Siu Ijl ,«f A Л ~l inl> ЬЛ-jj J III j _1 (_gl-A JL-4-j
I jjl _5j । 4 j * ° I"  1 11" ° I	1	> jIj4—iLmj jl—। m ।
jjLo ‘although the newly-sprung saplings along the banks
of the channels were already in leaf,j since with their bare trunks they
were not yet very shady, they did not prevent the running water from
growing hot from the heat of the sun’3. This sentence consists of a
main clause (Subscript No. 3), two subordinate clauses with finite
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verbs (Nos. 1 and 2), and an embedded subordinate clause with a
non-finite verb (‘from growing hot...’; since this translates as a non-finite
verb phrase in English, we will ignore it). Clause No. 1 is identified
not by a conjunction, but by a Concessive form of the verb phrase at
its end (see 4.34); Clause No. 2 is identified by an initial conjunction;
and the main clause by its final position.
Word order within subordinate clauses is fundamentally the same as
that of main clauses (4.2); a change of subject will be signaled by a
new NP or pronoun and, if appropriate, a change in the personal ending
of the verb. The sequence of clauses themselves is quite flexible.
Coordinate sentences in sequence express as the first clause the event
or state that occurs first in point of time, or as a cause or other logical
prelude to the second clause (4.11); in a complex sentence combining
a main and a subordinate clause, this is frequently, but not necessarily,
the case. Subordinate clauses are to the main sentence as adverbs are
to verbs; just as adverbs may vaiy their position in the sentence according
to their semantic category (2.46), so different kinds of subordinate
clause may typically occur before, after, or embedded within, the main
clause.
Conjunction formation: The key to understanding subordinate clauses,
and in particular their relation to the main clause, is the subordinating
conjunction (or phrase). These words and collocations are to clauses as
prepositions and postpositions are to NPs; a few conjunctions are even
identical with prepositions, more are formed directly from prepositions,
and others from prepositional phrases. From a formal and lexical
standpoint, there are four types of conjunction:
Primitive conjunctions. These are few, and some are formally identical
with prepositions: to L ‘until, while’ (prepn. ‘up to, until’), чун
jjjja.‘as, when’ (prepn. ‘like, as’), агар I ‘if’.
Preposition with Sentential pronoun and ki. The preposition precedes,
or joins in izofat with, ин ‘this’ or он (jl ‘that’, or their
emphatic forms хамин j । n a or х,амон followed by the
all-purpose complementizer ки a_______£ (cf. sentential complements,
4.15): бо он ки <t_SLu L ‘for all that..., although’, бидун-и ин
ки < \ jI ojJ-j ‘without [doing]’ (Fr. sans que, Ger. ohne dafi',
cf. bidun, 2.21).
SYNTAX
351
Sometimes what looks like a complex conjunction of this type
is quite a different formulation: {бо камин} ки шод бошанд,
майлаш, ман кам мепушам <о7.1« < с. л,1 , <1 л, {j * L
^_л j- }‘if they are pleased with this, fine. I’ll wear (it)
too’—here ki as the second constituent of the sentence independ-
ently stands in for agar ‘if’ (see 4.30, 4.37); the first constituent
(which might just as well have been onho ‘they’) is fortuitously
the prepositional phrase bo hamin ‘with this’.
Prepositional phrase with sentential pronoun and ki. If the phrase ends
with the preposition, this directly governs the pronoun: назар ба
ин ки ч э k,'i ‘in view of the fact that’; if it ends with the
noun, this is linked to the pronoun by izofat'. бо вучуд-и ин ки
jj-js. j L ‘despite the fact that, although’ (2.22). This is the
most numerous type of conjunction in Tajik, though not the most
frequently used.
Relative conjunct. In this type, an adverbial phrase—or a reduced
form of it, e.g. (дар) вакт-и uZj-Ьj (jj) ‘(at) the time of’ —is
joined directly to ki with the relative enclitic -e, so that the
conjunction appears to be the antecedent of a restrictive relative
clause: вак,т-е ки o~i tj ‘the time that...,’ i.e., ‘when’ (4.27).
However, it differs from a true relative clause construction in that
this “antecedent” is never the subject or object, or any other
argument, of the “relative” clause; it is an abstract adverbial conjunct
(cf. the relative clause in the sentence vaqt-e, ki guzast, bar
namegardad ‘(the) time that has passed will not return’, and the
relative conjunct clause in vaqt-e ki (mo) javon budem, monda
namesudem ‘when we were young, we didn’t get tired’). Relative
conjuncts are used especially to introduce adverbial clauses of
time and place, but may form other kinds of subordinate conjunction;
as between Relative conjunct and Prepositional phrase types, Tajik
usage does not always correspond to that of Standard Persian.
Indefinite Relative conjuncts (кар кучо I > Si j_a ‘wherever’,
etc.) bear a similar relation to the antecedents of indefinite Relative
clauses; see 4.46.
Syntactic alternatives. Many types of finite subordinate clause may
be transformed into some kind of non-finite nominalized sentential
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CHAPTER FOUR
complement (and vice versa); this will be noted where pertinent. For
instance, if the subordinate verb is intransitive (even if Composite or
Conjunct), it may be reduced to a simple embedded NP of a kind usual
also in Persian or English, in two steps:
(1) The subordinate VP becomes an Infinitive phrase;
(2) The conjunction, if derived from a prepositional phrase, reverts to
the prepositional phrase.
гаир аз ин ки шаб-у руз ба хок-
имони золим хушомадгуй карда
мегардй, дигар корро намедонй.
гаир аз шаб-у руз ба хокимони
золим хушомадгуй карда гаштан
дигар корро намедонй.
ДЬ I jjl£
‘except for going around day and night saying nice things to oppres-
sive rulers, you know no other trade’.
Embedding. For convenience, finite subordinate clauses are here
arranged under three types: those usually preceding the main clause,
those usually following it, and relative clauses, which either follow or
are embedded in the main clause. These distinctions are far from absolute:
clauses of a type normally preposed may be postposed, and vice versa,
in order to redirect the focus of the sentence. Both preposed and postposed
subordinate clauses may be embedded (i.e., between a NP and the
terminal VP), e.g.: базм-и доираги-ро, {ба сабаб-и он ки овоз-и
дойра монанд-и шикастан-и сафолхо ба гуш мерасид,} дар
Бухоро сафолак х,ам мегуфтанд । <.. i} <lJurS
I jI \ j jj {< j „л .Jl i m ф~ ।.X a.	6jLIj jljl
.'•i~	। -I f-Jb .<11 i ... ‘In Bukhara, {since the sound of a tambourine
sounds like dinner plates being smashed,} a tambourine party was also
called a “crockery”’; уро хам халифа, ба дарада-е {ки каф-и
пой-хо-яш хуншор шавад,} зад <_£} с$1<-з.«<—a _dA IjjI
jj jI л, ' j A	‘the class monitor bastinadoed him
too, so hard {that the soles of his feet ran with blood}’ (Subjunctive).
SYNTAX
353
4.27 Temporal Clauses (1)
The primitive conjunction чун locates a punctual, or habitual,
action in past time: чун уро дида мондам, суханон-аш ба ёд-ам
омад л—Л (*jL_л-, (jt. 'J 'A ... о ijjj Ijjl ‘when I caught
sight of him, I recalled his words’ (cun is literary in register; see also
under Circumstantial clauses, 4.30, and 2.19). Most other conjunctions
that introduce adverbial clauses of time are of the Relative conjunct
type (4.26); punctual actions in the temporal clause are denoted by the
Simple Past, habitual or iterative ones by the Durative Past.
‘When’ (punctual, inc. habitual or iterative action, just before or at the
same time as the action of the main clause): вак,т-е ки бузгола
ба пеш-и модар-аш расид,... тумшук-и дароз-и худ-ро ба
сина-и у мебурд ...	...jjLo -dLcjj 4 S ( /Caj
'j .. . а 31 a \ j ... <и Ijjf jj	«7 when the kid reached its
mother, it... raised its long nose to her belly’ (‘the time that...’; the
most common and all-round word). Synonymous is замон-е ки
^Lo 5; a colloquial variant is вак,то ки !,;'.<j j
(vaqt-ho, pl.); more literary is хднгом-е ки <l$	хангоме-
ки чавонмард шинель-ро аз боло-яш дур карда хест,
офтоб ба канор-и шарк;и-и осмон гилем-и лолагун-аш-ро
пахн мекард ьаJl I
и* n "'I
j a ‘when the hero flung off the cloak and arose, the sun was
spreading his rose-tinted carpet over the eastern rim of the heavens’.
Derived from the interrogative kay ‘when?’ (2.34), кай ки
<£ is used in the spoken language, usually referring to future time
quasi-conditionally, ‘if and when’: кай ки ту пул-ро ёфта
додй, озод мешавй Л.д Jjl «^Jj cS-iL Ijl|jj <lS
‘when you come up with the money, you’re free’ (‘...find and
pay’); кай ки биёяд, гуед, ки ба назд-и ман дарояд
<_£ »  	< j_il_i_> ‘when he comes, tell him to
come and see me’ (the tenses of the temporal clause—Simple Past
or Present Subjunctive—are the same as would follow agar ‘if’;
cf. Conditionals, 4.35).
Word order: In this and most other kinds of temporal clause, the
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CHAPTER FOUR
subject (whether or not it is the same in both clauses) may precede
the conjunction: Лбдунабй вадто ки бемор шуд, падар-ам
уро нафоронид 1 jjl	jl-%	ц 1 1 ' ,
ajSI jlis ‘when Abdunabi fell ill, my father took a dislike to him’
(‘caused him not to please him’; foron(i)dan is the causative of
foridan ‘to please’: 5.15, and cf.foram ‘pleasing’, ).
(Dar) vaqt-e ki and synonyms may insert the main verb before
ki, producing a kind of pseudo-cleft sentence more closely
resembling a relative clause: вадт-е мо ба боло-и купрук
расидем, ки пароход ба содил наздик шуда буд	° j
> ь j Д < 5* a La. I > «Ск .л *... j	С ‘we
arrived on the bridge (just) as the steamer neared the bank’ ;
чдвон... фадат замон-е аз хоб бедор шуд, ки рахнамо-и
корвон уро такой дода... <i£ < jl t	... jl
...£>jL I(jljjL£ igLa 'iд>j ‘the youth awoke only when
the caravan guide shook him and...’. This device shifts the focus
from the main to the subordinate temporal clause (following ki);
cf. temporal ki introducing a postposed clause, 4.39.
Fine-tuning: The point of time may be specified by more precise
vocabulary: дам-е ки дустон-и сержант Одинаев ба рафик-и
дадрамон-и худ видоъ мекарданд, офтоб-и бегохй уфук-и
магриб-ро шуълавар мекард о—- й1—3—4—
।_____>1—□—а 1 <j_jS(_у-о Ijj __=». (jl_оj__3 (jj—>_sj d—i । ° .<i *. ..j
4, I j Jjl (j-aLSL-j ‘as Sergeant Odinaev’s
friends took leave of their heroic companion, a late sun set the
western horizon ablaze’ (or ‘while... were taking leave... was
setting’; simultaneous durative actions emphasized by use of dam
‘moment’ and the Durative Past in both clauses); гах,-е, ки кас
мусиди-и дустдошта-аш-ро мешунавад, гумон мекунад,
ки... «aj 1 <7|(^-д I j (_jXi1а.—4>1а 1-» “j-* —1—luj—° о44—* <t—J
• (jLa£ ‘when a person hears a favorite piece of music,
he thinks that...’ (gah is a variant of rox t>LS ‘time, occasion’, and
recalls xap rox j_a ‘whenever’; cf. 4.35).
A terminus ante quem or post quem may be established with
the aid of prepositions: мардумон-аш-ро датлиом мекунам,
то дам-е ки хок гард-и хун шавад ^L_c J", a I
SYNTAX
355
jJjA jj-c t£Lk yaj Lj <>’Kj л ‘I will massacre its popu-
lace until the earth is drowned in blood’ (‘until the moment...’;
Subjunctive, for an unrealized action). This temporal clause is
postposed for emphasis; cf. to Is as a purpose clause conjunction,
4.40; аз дам-е ки асп ба даст-и Шодй ва падар-и вай
гузашт,... руз аз руз фарбед шудан гриифт <—jl
UJ—i <-ij—S jjj jl jjj «'-' .7,3 (_gj jJj 3 ^jl------Л CLi-ujJ-J
c_ui jX ‘from the moment that the horse passed into the possession
of Shodi and his father,... it started to get sleeker by the day’.
Az vaqt-e ki, etc., and especially az boz-e ki (cf. 2.23) ‘from the
time that, since’, when referring to a period continuing to the
present, require the Present Indicative: аз боз-е ки дар диёр-и
Мовароуннадр як давм-и муаззам ба ном-и тоник...
истидомат доранд,... забои ва адабиёт-и Эшон дам ривон
ёфта омада-аст	j_jJJI ₽l jjL-o jLjj jj csjb j'
ф I Д i I ОI 1—1JI j ф b j  - -‘ j I J < 1 1.1 71—ш I ... < i -y IS l—j_i
...16j_oT <1 " ‘al - j; Ijj ‘ever since a mighty people called Tajiks
have been resident [‘are resident’] in the lands of Transoxiana...
their language and literature have [‘has’] likewise taken a hold
(there)’.
‘Now that’: Present resultative time is expressed using one of two
adverbs for ‘now’, with the Simple Past in the subordinate clause:
акнун ки маро боло-и ин кор дастгир кардй, ман дама-аш-ро
бояд ба ту дикоят карда дидам _,1£ ф-J	I j_o фз-iS I
л Дм	<** 1 JS**- 3 1 * i I j ^jZi I 4—й-А ф-а	_у—1^ 1—i-uJ nOW
that you have caught me in the act, I should tell you everything’;
доло ки аз най-навозй ва надл-гуй дилгир шуда ба замин
ёзида чашм-и худ-ро пушид, ин хаёлот аз пештара зиёдтар
сар-аш-ро фаро гирифт Jis 3	jl <—S ^1—a.
jl . "1VI 1 ф_11 . ,1 1 7’>3 ' ljJ3-^. jfc <7i 6 J-l j I—1 ф 1 О j-1	J—
cj-sIj-s I j j-3jL j &j ~ л. . ‘now that, having had his
fill of flute-playing and story-telling, he stretched out on the ground
and closed his eyes, these fancies took hold of his brain more than
before’.
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CHA Fl ER FOUR
4.28 Temporal Clauses (2)
Conjunctions specifying a time explicitly simultaneous with, or before
or after, the action of the main clause, are mostly built on prepositional
phrases and a Sentential pronoun (4.26).
Simultaneity: Allowing for rhetoric, punctual actions perceived as
happening at the same time as another punctual event are handled
similarly to those that happen immediately after another, whether
as cause and effect or independently; the examples below all show
the Simple Past tense in both clauses: баробар-и ин ки гуянда
сухан-и худ-ро ба поён расонид, аз х,ар тараф-и майдон
садо баромад	—л_> Ijjj а. о & л i <j S \ 11	I j i
t_s j-Л jl	‘at the same time as/ as
soon as the speaker ended his address, a shout went up from all
sides of the field’ (‘equal with’, etc.; see 2.22, 2.24); хамин ки
аз театр баромадем, борон cap шуд ___________13 jl <><•.,. * а
j—Л> j   jl jL	—of‘as soon as we exited the theater, it
started to rain’; то аз рохрав гузашта, ба миён-и ру-и давлй
расидам л mj	9 ? о। * л 1 <4 3 А, л	^1 13 as
soon as I went through the passageway, I came out (directly) into
the courtyard’ (i.e., ‘the passageway led (me) straight into the
courtyard’; the participle stands for a Simple Past, guzastam\ for
to 13 see further, 4.29).
The Present Indicative is also used: хамин ки аз ин рахна
дарунтар меравед, фиреб хурдан-и худатон-ро мефахмед
JJjj—1 uuj fi	—J о j—‘L-jl '* J «-*
a. j л	I j j 13j‘as (soon as) you go farther into this cleft,
you will understand that you have been deceived’ (‘your being
deceived’).
‘While’ (for present or future time, see to 13, 4.29). In past time, the
Durative Past (in the case of budan ‘to be’, the Simple Past) after
a conjunction meaning ‘when’ often has the sense ‘while’: вакт-е
ки Copo ин ашула-ро дар даво-и рез-и уфар мехонд,
Шодй дам... бо чустй ва чобуки-и гирдбод-монанд дар
цо-и нишастаги-и худ хдракат мекард ^1 I _,1_^ o"i
SYNTAX
357
jjia-o	jjA u<'i..uVi ^La. jj xLLUjLj^ *while
Soro sang this song to the lively rhythm of the air called Ufar,
Shodi too... shimmied on the spot with whirlwind-like grace and
agility’.
A conjunction such as vaqt-e ki may also combine with то Ls,
followed by the Durative past, to mean ‘while, all the time that’:
то вадт-е ки Бибидадбошй зинда буд, калонон аз он куча
намегузаштанд <j3-1 axS j > aj ц-> _ 	о~» »j ts
л.л< «•,	jl‘as long as/ while Bibi Daboshi was
alive, the grown-ups never used to go through that street’.
To emphasize the simultaneity of durative actions in the past,
there is дар холат-е ки <t_£	_,j ‘while, during the time
that, at the same time as’ (lit. ‘in the situation that...’): дар холат-е
ки оташ-и ин тарф гуррос зада мебаромад ва тахта ба
даст-амон буд, монанд-и аспон-и харос чарх мезадем jj
4 ~ Ч~ j j—oTj—c <—ij-l®	**—I—
л j1	ф!__*  “I л ** * I a < Jjl n 1 t uXj at the same
time as this firework was blazing, (still) holding the platform we
were wheeling around like startled horses’ (‘while the firework
was... and the platform was in our hands,...’). It may also take а
negated verb, in which case it has a concessive nuance: дар холат-е
ки худаш даст-аш-ро ба об-и сард намезад,... чорьяккор-
он-аш-ро бар ин кор фармуд I j Л u,j <£	!_=». jj
jl£ j-il j-j I jliijjk ..	<_,l_i‘while
not putting his own hands into the cold water, he had his...
sharecroppers do the work’.
‘Before’: The conjunction пеш аз он ки <u£s( JI jia-i ‘before’,
since it necessarily denotes an action unrealized at the time of the
main clause (even in past time), requires the Subjunctive: Петр
пеш аз он ки равад, хотир-и хануз дуруст осуда-нагирифта-и
ятими-и бе-кас-у куй-ро дамъ карданй шуд J1 j ~
j	p i ~_i	-ijj <L^-
x-i	" T I ‘before he left, Petr set about reassuring
the homeless waif, who was not yet entirely free of anxiety’; пеш
аз он ки хурок хурй, дастхо-ят-ро шу	<££Т Jl (_Дл_1
I j.-, 'I 0 ~	‘before you eat, wash your hands’. A
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more literary synonym is the Arabic borrowing к,абл аз он ки
<<LsT jl J_Ls (for both, cf. 2.21).
‘After’: The most common equivalent, баъд аз он(-е) ки jl j_______
4_$ jj-il jl	has the colloquial variants баъд-и он/ ин
ки and баъд-е ки (cf. ba’d, 2.21): баъд аз он-е ки ба шах,р
баргаштем, Рашидов дар хона-и мо ч,о гирифт jl
cujjX La. Lo LSLL jj <__o Ij, >.7,j ,> _i~i ,7,^ j_> j о j <_£ ’after we
returned to the city, Rashidov moved in with us’; баъд-е ки
овоз-ам-ро баланд кардам, баргашта омаданд «1_________$ j____
~ Л,	xJ_> I j jljT ‘after I raised my voice,
they turned back’. The more literary synonym is пас аз он ки
4_£_lT j I пас аз он ки бача халтах,о-ро ба ароба бор
карда буд, сох,иб-и х,авлй уро ба хона-аш таклиф карда
Гуфт > «Jj-j	jLi 4_j I j_x—i I j I 4 ~ I -> <1 i <1 «С \f j| «j.. >
e.ii C	с£14_2>1_Ц> IjjI ‘after/ when the boy
had loaded the sacks onto the cart, the proprietor invited him into
his house’.
Either Simple Past or Pluperfect may follow these conjunctions in past
time. In present sequence, the tense is Indicative and according to
sense: баъд-е ки чашм-и писарак пушида мешавад, духтар аз
цо-яш хеста, гул-и пажмурд-ро аз таг-и сар-аш гирифта
мепартояд	j	i7, i n a.	>7, ->	- r 1 * *
" •	"	“ v	J ~
4_l_aj_S lXj jl IjbJ-4 j A. ‘afterthe
boy’s eyes close, the girl gets up, takes the wilted rose from his brow
and throws it away’.
4.29 The Conjunction to
A semantic extension of the preposition to Ci ‘up to, as far as, until’
(2.19), this conjunction (also то ин/ он ки 4 < '.T\ <i < \ .I (_3, more
rarely то ба он-е ки 4_______$	4) has both temporal and other
functions, such as to introduce postposed Purpose clauses (4.41). As
an index of time, it denotes either a terminal point at which the activity
or state described in the main clause ends (‘until; by the time that’), or
a period during which an activity or state is sustained before some
terminal point (‘while; so long as’). These potentially ambiguous indices
SYNTAX
359
are clarified by means of the tenses and aspects of verbs in each
clause, and whether they are affirmative or negative.
The sense ‘until’, denoting the culmination of a process or the
result of a repeated action, is expressed in a postposed clause introduced
by то (он ки) (<l£sT) Is: see 4.41. The four functions in which to Is
introduces a preposed clause are as follows.
‘By the time...’: The overtaking of one act or process by another involves
to Is in a preposed clause with either a Simple or a Durative past:
ин ним санг pox-po то гузашта омадам, ки вахт ним-и
шаб шуд	czujj 4_S <t т Ls I j J j	^1
‘by the time I (had) covered this four-kilometer distance,
3 it was midnight’ (a Conjunct verb in the temporal clause, lit.
‘having passed, came’; note that a subject or object NP may precede
to Ls; ki is redundant, presumably emphatic); то он ки вай аз
дахлез-и хона-и калон ва худ-и хона мегузашт, ман ба
модар-ам на-фахмонида, охиста ба мадон-и торик даромада
руст шудам «UiLA a3 jyLS LsL^k j__jl (_$j Ls
ЬЛ-aT jJ  _> j LS IJ л i <1 и &T < 6 Л i *i I. a fl fl ‘i jjl a I tj_ai~ i i~ (
j ‘by the time he had passed through the vestibule of
the house and the inner room, I had—without letting on to my
mother—quietly made my way to the dark pantry and hidden
there’ (Simple Past in both clauses).
‘So long as... not’: то вазифа-и худат-ро тайёр на-кунй, берун
на-равй С53.Й й	_>Ц4= 1 j LLJjj Is ‘so long
as you don’t do your homework, you don’t go out/ you don’t (get
to) go outside until you’ve done your homework’. This use of
to Ls with a negated dependent verb, referring to an unfulfilled
condition, is very common. The time index is that of a period
during which an action is not accomplished; idiomatic English
usually prefers ‘not... until’, transforming it into the corresponding
frame of a terminal point at which the action is accomplished. The
sequence Present Subjunctive—Present Indicative is that of a
Possible Condition; see 4.35.
Further examples: то ки Восеъ-ро ба даст на-афтонед...,
фатхнома навиштан-и шумо барвахт аст lj£_lJj < Ls
3 Sang is short for farsang, a measure of distance, approx. 7 km.
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La-Jb	<t_ol ‘i.-x~i i>«... j_±Sl3_ilj	‘until
you have Vose' in your grasp, your victory proclamation is pre-
mature’ (‘so long as you do not cause V. to fall into your hands...’);
то бисёр такрор на-кунй, забон-и тодики-ро ёд намегирй
t g.> 1 н n '*	1 jOj <3^3	'ь^ 1	* jI—। <<> > Lj‘until/
unless you practice a lot, you won’t learn Tajik’; то амир-ро
зада нест на-кунем, ман ярок-ро аз даст намепартоям Ls
3* I j j'jt1 d-» T?'‘*41'-'j'1 6J3 *JJ J
‘until we destroy the emir, I shall not lay down my arms’ (nest
kardan ‘to annihilate’).
‘While’ (see also 4.28): Simultaneity of actions or states is expressed
by a preposed clause introduced by то (вакт-е ки) (<£	11
with a durative tense in the Indicative: то зинда-ам нон-ам-ро
ёфта мехурам j*	<lS_sL I jf-jll <я1ьа13 11‘so long as I
live I will earn my bread’ (‘find and eat’); то реша дар об аст,
умед-и самар аст clj-xJ j^i	<cu—J <_J jj < Ls ‘while
the root is wet, there’s fruit there yet’ (prov.); то вадт-е ки у
саволнома-ро пур мекард, мо ran мезадем jl " aj Ls
<_^ Lo	I j«t n| 'i 11‘while he filled out the
form, we chatted/...was filling out...were chatting’.
‘As far/ much as, to the extent...’: In literary style, with the Present
Subjunctive of modal verbs or idioms: то тавонй, дониш омуз
jji-Slj <(_j.iljl Ls ‘as far as you can, learn knowledge’.
4.30 Circumstantial Clauses
Adverbial clauses which elucidate the background to an action (‘since/
as...’), or cite the cause, usually precede the main clause. (For postposed
clauses of Explanation, see 4.39.)
The temporal conjunction чун ‘when’ (4.27) may also mean
‘since’: чун омадан-и шумо ба ман маълум набуд, наомадам
< jj_<1 jLa—a I о Л, (jx-ol j^'since I was not aware that
you were coming/ had come, I did not come’. More literary is азбаски
3I ‘forasmuch as, since, as’ (unusually, this transparent com-
pound is written as one word in Cyrillic, as is its counterpart in English;
whereas the preference in Perso-Arabic is for three separate words):
SYNTAX
361
азбаски шумо телеграмма надодед, мо аз омадан-атон хабар
надоштем j_> < jl Л ’и nT jl 1—=	Lab;,	jl
P "___Lib ‘as you didn’t send a telegram, we had no notice of your
arrival’; азбаски кор-и бисер доштам, ба хона-и падар-ам рафта
натавонистам «bbij ‘b(__b	.Llj jl .j ... । jLS	jl
.blj ~". ‘since I had a lot of work (to do), I could not go to my
father’s house’.
The prepositions барои ‘for’ and бинобар j_i Lb ‘on account of’
(2.20) also form circumstantial conjunctions with a Sentential pronoun
and ki: барои он ки Зайнаб ба хадц-и балогат расидагй буд,
нафака-и муайяншуда чандон калон набуд Ь j <t_S j) ^1 j_j
jj i‘i JYlS J lb>	j xuj uXj-cYL.	‘since
Zaynab had reached maturity, the subsidy allotted was not all that
much’.
In most conjunctions of this structure, if the main clause is shorter
(and less important) than the subordinate clause it may be preposed,
and the meaningful component of the conjunction embedded before
the verb (i.e., as an adverbial part of the VP), which is followed by ki:
ман ба назд-и падарам бинобар он на-даромадам, ки дар он
до одамон-и но-шинос хам буданд	j iLbi р-и, jJ-b, j_o
I 1 xuiLj jj I—ajl I—:x.	—° I jb ‘I did not join my
father because there were also people I did not know with him/ the
reason I did not join my father was that...’ (cf. Word order, 4.27).
Conversely, if the subordinate clause is not too long and complex,
it may be nominalized as an Infinitive (phrase) and attached by izofat
to the base preposition: бинобар аз хад зиёд калон будан-и сар-аш...
...(jiij_ьо (jjj-i jLj j__a. jI j_j Lb ‘on account of his head being
inordinately large/ because his head was...’ (cf. Syntactic alternatives,
4.26).
Acceptance of, or accommodation to, a circumstance is expressed
by a conjunction built on a borrowed Arabic VP (in a Relative conjunct;
4.27): модом-е ки вай омад, ман мемонам . j_aT <t_$ t ^LL
(bl__0^ ‘so long as he’s come/ seeing that he’s here, I’ll stay’.
Note that (1) though the sense of the temporal clause is resultative
(‘since it has happened, as a result...’), the tense is usually Simple
Past, not Perfect; (2) modom-e ki does not bear the literal sense of ‘as
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long as, all the time that’; this is rendered by дар холат-е ки jj
Lx (4.28) or to Li (4.29).
More explicit are various conjunctions built on prepositional phrases
incorporating a word for ‘cause’ or ‘reason’ or a specific intellectual
or emotional impetus (cf. 2.22): аз сабаб-и он ки боришот хеле
зиёд шуд, киштзорхо зарар-и кал он диданд 4 < Т , ,  jl
jSjjj jyLS LbjljJkA£ < j-4. jLj cjLijL ‘because there
were very heavy rains, the fields suffered great damage’ (lit. ‘from
reason of the fact that...’); ман ба гумон-и ин ки борон cap
шуда-аст, або пушидам <exxJ	jl jL <t£\□! j!
Lj-с ‘thinking that it had started to rain, I put on a raincoat’
(‘with the notion that...’).
Similar are: аз тарс-и/ хавф-и он ки jjT u_sj <\ jl
‘out of fear that’, ба умед-и ин/ он ки jjf \ jj ‘in hopes
that’, ба хаёл-и ин/ он ки <_£ jT \ j-d Jl j L  ‘imagining that’
(‘with the fancy that...’), дар орзу-и он ки 4 S	_>j, 6a
майл-и он ки <t£sT wishing that/to...’, бо мацсад-и он ки L
4_£jJ	—a ‘with the intention/ purpose of...’; since these express
unrealized or speculative occurrences, they are followed by the Present
or Past Subjunctive (3.25-26): ба умеди ин ки зудтар расам, ба
асп савор шудам j- .L jlj.. „	jj 4 < . I .< , J
‘hoping to arrive sooner, I went on horseback’; ба хаёли он ки
офтоб баромада бошад, либос пушида аз хона берун рафтам
(j^jj .1 > 4_jLux jl ЬЛ 1	Ц—yu 1 \ J , i^iLa 6 Л <\ I 3—1 I . I ~ ОI 4 С . I JI .	.
f-S__i j ‘imagining that the sun would/ must have risen, I dressed and
went outside’.
4.31 Substitution of ki in Preposed Clauses
Temporal and circumstantial conjunctions, and occasionally other
adverbial conjunctions (see Conditionals, 4.37), if the meaning is clear
from the context, may be replaced simply by ки 4_______$ ‘that’ as the
second constituent of the preposed subordinate clause: мох-и май ки
ба Душанбе омадам, х,аво гарм буд <^а_а) 4 .L4_>
j3-1  L I Tn May when I came to Dushanbe, the weather was
warm’ (temporal); ин до ки хаво гарм аст, харбуз-у тарбуза хам
SYNTAX
363
меруянд	6 j	lj_a LaJuJ
‘since the weather is warm here, even melons and watermelons grow’
(circumstantial; this might also be stated just as indirectly in English:
‘here, where the weather is warm,...’). Sometimes ki appears as the
third constituent (e.g., after both subject and object of the subordinate
clause): усто гушаш-ро ки тобид, фиребгариро бас мекунад
jnu I<l_$ II ~ ...I ‘once the
watchmaker twists its ear, it will stop its tricks’ (lit. ‘twisted’, Simple
Past, as in a possible Conditional; cf. 4.35. Forusto, see 5.22).
The first constituent of the sentence forms a prosodic unit with ki
and the rest of the clause; there is no pause between them when spoken
and, properly, no comma when written. In Cyrillic, however, such
clauses are often punctuated like Relative clauses (even though Tajik
grammarians distinguish between the two), with a comma following
the initial constituent (see 4.42): ман[,] ки на до-и рафтанй доштам,
на рахои-ро, хайрон монда будам <р.~	j <с£
6JJ1L-0 (jlj j	<Ci ‘since I had nowhere to go and no
means of escape, I was bewildered’.
The word or phrase preceding ki may be almost any sentence
constituent except the VP, whether NP subject or object, or an adverbial
phrase (see the first examples above); the stratagem is valid for any
time frame and for sentences with the same or different subjects: онхо
ки хобиданд, омада, ба ман гуфта медихй	LpT
<1 ~ i C .bj_oT‘when they have gone to sleep, (you will)
come and report to me’ (the change of subject in the main clause
makes it clear that this cannot be a relative clause, ‘those who...’);
омадан-аш-ро ки фахмидем, хама-и мо аз до хестем
л ......  < La. jl Lo Ji-a-Л .ч м . ь <l£ I‘when we learned of
his arrival/ realized he had arrived, we all got up’; бой ки ба Кдршй
сафар карда буд, хавли-и берун хомуш ва ором меистод
m_il ^f-ь	JI J	(jjj-AJ (j-lj-a-
‘as the rich man had gone on a trip to Qarshi, the outer area of the
mansion was [‘stood’] quiet and peaceful’.
In same-subject sentences it may be hard to gauge whether a given
ki clause of this type is primarily temporal or circumstantial in sense,
or even whether it is not structurally a Non-restrictive Relative clause
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(4.43): духтарча, ки дар гирд-у пеш-и худ модар-и худ-ро
наёфт, ба гирья даромад jjl_o jj-Л. uh_i_. j jj-S jjlS ~ <<
J—of jj	xS I jjj-А ‘the little girl, not finding her mother
anywhere near, began to cry’ (reading either ‘when’ or ‘because’), or
‘...who did not find her mother,...’. The comma supplied in the Cyrillic
text predisposes it to be read as a Relative clause (see above), but even
so, as the various possible English translations attest, the logical link
between the clauses is transparently causal and may be expressed in
different ways.
Other structures where ki appears in second place, such as reporting
speech (4.18) and indefinite Relative clauses, are not usually ambiguous:
xap кудой ки равй, фахмон, ки мо кистем <_S ^4 ?
_i T. ц, _,S Lo <с£	«4.8 ‘wherever you go, tell (people) who we are’
(4.45; for ki introducing postposed clauses, see 4.39-40). Also to be
distinguished are embedded subordinate clauses, where the adverbial
component of the conjunction follows a sentence-initial constituent:
вай пас аз он ки аз ду гудоз гузашт,... рох-и Исфара-ро пеш
ГИрифТ у Iё .ill blj	i С	jj jl 5 ,|	q
‘after he passed [the village of] Two Forges,... he took the Isfara road’
(cf. 4.29).
4.32 Adverbial Clauses of Place, Manner, Degree
Also using ki in some form of Relative conjunct or with a Sentential
pronoun are clauses of place, manner (including comparison and Specu-
lative simile), and degree.
Place: The classic formulation is as a Relative clause containing an
anaphoric pronominal phrase such as ki (dar) on jo ‘in which
place’: баъд мода-саг бар хоста, охиста-охиста пеш-и
дарвоза рафт, ки дар он до як охур-и кухна буд j______________
(j I J J 4-^ 1 <“ l8 j 6 J I J J J i—i 4 ~	& f 4 " JJI й I < 4—j—ш LA l.£k IU< 6 J l—o
jj_j i 5 j-AT La, ‘then the bitch got up and very slowly
went over to the gate, where there was an old stable’. The clause
in this case is postposed (as here) or embedded (see 4.42).
‘Where, somewhere’ without an antecedent, as a preposed
adverbial clause, is rendered by до-е ки <l£ ^La., generally with
SYNTAX
365
a locative or directional preposition, ‘(at/ to/ from) the place which’:
дар до-е ки об даст, дар он до хам даёт мебошад jj
oLi^. LaJd jj <.^ьи. A <L^‘where there is water,
there too is life’; то ч,о-е ки тасма-и узангу мерасид, худ-ро
пас кашидам 1 jj-э^-' j^> jjl а ^la.
‘I pulled myself back to where the saddle-strap reached’;
аз до-е ки омадй, ба хамон 40 бар гард <_£ ^La jl
jj^j-j Ц. ‘go back to where you came from’ (lit. ‘from the
place that you came, go back to the same place’; the first preposition
is attached to the main clause NP antecedent instead of a subordinate
clause copy, but the sense remains clear).
This type of clause may also be embedded parenthetically: дар
py ба ру-и калъа..., 40-е ки ин об ба Сурхоб мерезад,... jj
<_>!	4_j <_.!	<£ , f-jLa. ..«< «la csjj-j jj
‘opposite the fortress..., where this stream flows into the Surkh-
ob,...’; or postposed, if it is lengthy or requires emphasis: вай дар
чо~е пинхон шуда-аст, ки сарбозон чил сол кобанд хам,
ёфта наметавонанд 4________$	___& <jl $ \ > ( jj (
jJlSIji^-a-S 4_n_aU <j»_A jJljLS JLu Ja. jjl jUj_^‘he hid some-
where (that) the soldiers, though they searched for forty years,
would not be able to find (him)’ (cf. 4.26, Word order; for Con-
cessive ham, see 4.34).
Manner and comparison: Clauses describing the manner in which an
action is performed bear affinities, on the one hand, to comparisons
(‘in the manner of, like’) and on the other, result clauses (‘so...
that’ and ‘so that’). This section deals with the former, in which
the content or basis of the comparison is stated, and which are
normally preposed and have their verb in the Indicative.
These include the parenthetical introductory reference of the
type: тавр-е ки дар пешгуфтор-и китоб ёд-овар мешавад, у
аз байн-и солхо-и сиюм ба гирд-овари-и ин афсонахо
машгул буда-аст jljTjU <_>1_з_£ jl т _i_i <t£ (gjj-L
‘4 j* 1 "\ fj' J* *<$—
ouuJ j-j Jj i » n Lb<CiLu_il ‘as is mentioned in the preface to
the book, he undertook the collection of these folk tales during the
thirties’, чунон ки аз гуфта-и бузург-солон шунидем,...
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CHAPTER FOUR
...iMti'i 4» jJj SlS-LS jf <£slsk ‘as we have heard from
the accounts given by older people,...’, чунон-е ки дангом-и
барраси-и лоида...узв-и даиат-и кори... иброз дошт ,
t ijJj •	<" 11л ft j . А г ...<t	I < ft as
the member of the working committee... observed during study of
the bill’ (the enclitic -e on cunon, by analogy with vaqt-e, tavr-e,
etc., is redundant; cf. candon-e below).
Clauses that compare the activity of the main clause to another
typical, real-world activity often have their verb in the Aorist of
general validity (3.9): чунон ки мургдо-и хонагй хокбозй
кунанд, ондо ба cap-и сина-ашон ба барф хобида,...
барфдо-ро ба зер-и болдо-шон пош медоданд <д < J1
Lii I *1 j m j I (j 11 < J *t	j I—Lk i Li. Lft j—a
(jl 4,1 d Ij* d flJ-e	±.<l3—‘just as
domestic fowl take dust-baths, so these [birds] lay down on their
breasts in the snow... and scattered the snow beneath their wings’
(cf. cunon as an adverb, 2.47); хар-он дам шура-до-и биёбон-ро,
ба тарз-е ки бачагон данд-ро маканд, бо шавд-у завд
мехоиданд	csj-Д*-1 *1 j йЦЦн1 <5^ 6 зз-^ jl>*
Jjj j Зз—4* U , л 'Л a I ‘the donkeys chewed
the desert bracken with abandon, as children lick candy’.
If the main clause is appreciably shorter than the subordinate
clause, it may be preposed, with the VP embedded between the
parts of the conjunction: у ин кор-ро тавр-е мекард, ки
одамон-и чавон дар куча ва бордо... мекунанд I jjl£ jl
a A . . Lg-c. L_> j j a <jlj-^- (jC>aI	cs зз-1° he
did this in the way that/ just like young people do it in the streets
and parks’.
Clauses which make a speculative or counterfactual comparison
often put the verb in the Present or Past Subjunctive or the
Conditional: худ, ба тарз-е ки ягон хидмат-и мудим-ро бо
муваффадият адо карда омада бошад, дамчин-аш-ро бозй
дошта ба сарой даромад I ез-длА (jL^-з ^j^L-i
4_j—ulj jl—1 I j 1 —°—* л—4,1—> д j—of	1з1 I s—a 3—6 I—1
хдТ jj ^1 jc > ‘he himself, with the air of one who had successful-
ly carried out some important assignment, entered the courtyard
SYNTAX
367
flourishing his horsewhip’ (‘in the manner that... he might have...’);
мисл-и он ки пешакй маслихат карда бошем,... «КлТ Jb, -
...<^_j—£>(_>	-> I .z-. a o5 Л. j_i ‘as if we had consulted in
advance’; якчанд нафар, ба тарз-е ки бинанда ондо-ро
мурда гумон мекард, хобида буданд <l£ jjlx_i«jAS v.
jjjj—i	(jl n 6Jj—a	I i ‘ОПв ОГ tWO
persons were sleeping so [soundly] that an onlooker would think
them dead’.
Speculative similes: A frequent rhetorical device in Tajik is an extension
of the speculative clause of manner as illustrated above, introduced
mostly by the verbal adjective гуё Ljj______S‘as if (to say)’ (3.39),
before or after ки <u_S, and usually followed by a Present or Past
Subjunctive: Хадида, гуё ки додиса-е руй на-дода бошад,
ба гапдо-и у гуш накард	<i$ .«-ajj A.
jj^j (Jijl (_;! д .<; - л .7.1  ajljji ‘Khadija, as though nothing
had happened, did not listen to what he said’; радс-и ин духтар-и
симбар чунин аст, ки гуё товус мехиромида бошад (_^=>j j
J-^l_i 6J-J_alj-A (jujUa L>S	(j jAa. j ' n I ... j-jA.J (jjl
‘this lovely girl dances like a peacock sauntering’ (‘the dance of...
is such, that one might say a peacock had sauntered’). Since the
simile is usually the center of focus, that clause is frequently
postposed.
The clause may also be treated as a sentential complement,
with the verb in the Present (Progressive) Indicative (as the tense
used by the observer; see 4.15): кушбегй худ-ро чунон нишон
медод, ки гуё ин адвол-ро дар умр-и худ нахустин бор
шунида истода-аст < jIj^ jLAS (jLla. I jjj-A (_^^>
a d ~ . .. >1 6 J i ~i ,7i jLi (j i T m \ *i JjA. j n r jJ lj Jljja.1 (j-11
...I ‘the chief minister pretended he was hearing about all this
for the first time in his life’ (‘showed himself such, that one might
say he is hearing...’); Бибиоиша худ-ро ба Ибод чунон намуд,
ки гуё... Одина-ро ба хона-и хучдйн-аш рафта мепиндошт
...Ljj—S 4—S <Jj----oJi (jlAa. jl—j—C 4_j IjJj-A. 4 j. _! co? _i.j
,7.h » a 4-L-ij a7,LilA.4_ilj4_k.jjl ‘Bibioisha appear-
ed to Ibod to think that Odina had gone to his master’s house’
(Past Durative, ‘seemed such that she was thinking...’).
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A colloquial alternative to guyo ki is xud(d)-i ki: у, худ(д)-и
ки маро намешиносад, аз назд-ам нигох, накарда гузашта
рафт 4 т xTi j	I 6 1	J I f Л * “I 1 i*n f * * I Д 4^	< J I
cjj j ‘he went past me without a glance, as if he didn’t know me’
(lit. ‘the selfsame as if’; for xud, see 2.32; for the double d, see
1.8, Arabic geminates). Other conjunctions and verbal formulas
are: мисл-и ин ки он бозича каждум... бошад 4£ j>l
а_Л1_> Jj-£ ...4-e-j jL> jT ‘as if the toy were a scorpion’ (misl-i,
2.21); борон чунон ки аз чандон хазор сатил ба якбора об
мерехта бошад, бо шиддат меборид jl <i < j I ? jljL
Cl; Л in L <Л inL 4 ~ -k i j —>1 6 jLn $ i 4—1	_ku jlj_A (j I л 'i
д-j j‘it rained hard, as if a thousand buckets of water had
suddenly been emptied’; факдт сарди-и охан «ман дар даст-ат,
хушъёр бош!» гуфтагй барин у-ро хабардор кард L_S__________а
Uj' lH-H < t,~ а	jl _	‘"-I	(_5J
jj-S j I jj-lA ‘only the coldness of the iron alerted him, as though
saying “I am in your hand, be vigilant!”’ (the simile nominalized;
cf. Pseudo-direct speech, 4.18).
Магар j-S_o, lit. ‘if not’, is used to introduce a speculation
(‘perhaps, as it were’): падар вакт-и гуфтан-и ин суханон-и
афсус-хурона ангушт-он-аш-ро хам-у рост мекард, магар
у дар мох ба хар сад танга чанд танга афтодан-и он
фоида-и сангин-ро хисоб карда медид ^1 j ~ ° j
л Cu-lJj j jkA I jjiil ~ “i^'il	L»“J  »। jl '	mi
6.Д—il fl I ijjl i fll 4^ii .Cik. 4 i i J ।i-i A 4_i ьI л jJ jI	j
6j j-S Ц1 ц. -x	in‘as he spoke these woeful words,
[his] father kept crooking and straightening his fingers, perhaps
trying to count the number of tangas lost on every hunrdred tangas
per month of that hefty profit’.
Degree and Reciprocal clauses: Reciprocal increase is expressed by
чй кадар/ хар кадар ки 4_£ jxj j_a\ jj_a 4-a. ‘the more/ the
-er’, with (if needed) an appropriate VP in the subordinate clause,
followed by a corresponding comparative adjective or adverb phrase
in the main clause: ба назар-и ман, чй кадар ки мехмонон
зиёдтар оянд, ва дертар нишинанд, ва чй кадар ки дастархон
фаровонтар шавад, [мизбон] хамон кадар хурсанд мешуд
SYNTAX
369
J ‘ J *> 'i _i Hl ‘i jjj-Jj j J-j-11 jJjjluJ Ljl n д л jjJl <Ca. «jj-а j U ’ .
j^jl-a-A illi—oI«I i_i <Jj_>Xi jj Jjljlj-S	"i mJ «t-S jJ-J 4-^
jm_i n jjjlcujA ‘It seemed to me [‘in my view’], the more guests
arrived and the later they stayed, and the more food was on the
table, the happier [the hostess] was’; хар кадар ки ресмон тоб
хурда, дароз мешуд, хамон кадар хам Шодй паснокй аз
пеш-и модар-аш дуртар мерафт <_>Ь jl п	jj-5 _>-&
уА±? j1	<-SjL-Д {*“*	и1—‘ j1 Jj
di-jj^j—о j-^jjj ------------« ‘the more the cord unwound and
lengthened, the farther behind his mother Shodi was left’.
‘So (much)... that...’ is чандон/ он кадар... ки \	< ' ?
... jjlSf; it generates a variety of result clause, which is usually
postposed (see further, 2.47, 4.40): цанг чандон кун, ки ба
сулх дой бошад j_.iL 1 ? jlj-le- '-7 ‘make
war (in) such (a way) that there is room for peace’ (Subjunctive,
so arguably a purpose clause); домулло... чандон-е хандид, ки
хикичок гирифта... _______=._1л « < ,.<  < ' < ( c ? ...у!_Jj
...<LLiA the learned cleric... laughed so hard that he got hiccups,
and...’ (candon appears to have accrued a redundant Relative enclit-
ic; cf. cunon-e under Manner, above); Давлат чандон гамгин
буд, ки намегирист-у халос 4__S <jj_i __________с jli '-7 dJjj
j	1 j_S	‘Davlat was so miserable that she didn’t
even cry’.
Other conjunctions of degree are prepositional phrases using
андоза	I jil ‘extent’, дараца i =.jj ‘degree’, or хад(д) \
‘limit’ (for the orthography of the latter, see 1.8, Arabic geminates):
уро ба андоза-е чуб заданд, ки токат-и он надошт Ijjl
duil jS jjl cuiLL < jJuj ij.^. ^gl b^IjsLi ‘they beat him until/
so hard that he could not bear it’; фарбехи-аш ба дараца-е буд,
ки... худ вазн-и худ-ро бардошта баромада наметавонист
ftJ-afj-j «Cbiljjj I jJj-1 J Jj JjA ...<£ < Jj-J egl	(jn _i Д 1 j-fl
du-u.'JjJS^j-aJ/his obesity was such [‘to a degree’] that... he could
not manage to lift his own weight’; ман хеле монда шудам, ба
хадд-е ки аз цой цумбида наметавонам 6j_J_________а ^1 _ < j-»
jCiljS^j-aJi lsA- j* a* ".' •(‘J-il’m so veiy tired, that
I can’t move from the spot’; alternately, ман ба хадд-е монда
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шудам, ки.....6^L>	 j-a.
‘As much as, to the extent that’ with a VP is formulated as
follows: чй дадар ки (ме)ходй, дамон кадар гир <t_S j i
j j_a Jl_о_л <сгл1	‘take as much as you want’; чй
дадар ки хизмат кунед/ кардед, ба дамой андоза мукофот
медиданд I jjl jjl * д  <j_>jj_X  ‘X  -. «Л д. j < » <t_a.
xlAjj^o uuLsIX-o ‘you will be recompensed to the extent that you
serve/ have served’.
4.33 Miscellaneous Adverbial Clauses
The following conjunctions of the Prepositional Phrase type are uni-
formly preposed (or embedded), and put the subordinate verb in the
Indicative for a real action and in the Subjunctive for a speculative or
non-accomplished action. Equivalent English idioms frequently use
the gerundial ‘-ing’. Care must be taken in some cases not to be
misled by a literal gloss.
These conjunctions are considered stylistically literary, and are not
frequently used. Equivalent expressions may usually be obtained by
linking the corresponding preposition or prepositional phrase to an
Infinitive or action noun phrase: ба до-и шикор рафтан, вай китоб
мехонд jJ>l-CH-bj jlX-i ‘instead of going
hunting, he read (a book)’.
‘Without -ing’: Бибиоиша то як дафта, бе он ки овоз-е баланд
кунад, чун му-и оташдида ба худ мепичид L <> л, -I .
4_>	—a « J-2X J ~i 1 i Ijl <£-jT , f-1 < < " i a
-a—=»_—x_>	j‘for a whole week Bibioisha, without raising a
cry, writhed about like a hair recoiling from a flame’.
‘Instead of -ing’: ба до-и он ки дар киштзор буда, ба кор-и
досилгундорй машгул бошанд, дар пеш-и давли-и
Арбобрузй гирд омада буданд <a>jjljT ЛХ jj «а < J
Cf-G--------а. (_г1 Jj <Л i-iuiLi Jj-i--£1--о jj-cJ-ча!-------a. jl£_i
aIj6d______oIjj_X	‘instead of working in the fields,
busily gathering in the harvest, they had flocked round to Arbob-
ruzi’s house’ (the participle-gerund buda anticipates the finite,
Subjunctive, verb bosand).
SYNTAX
371
‘Other than, except for, apart from -ing’: гаир аз ин ки шаб-у руз
ба хокимон-и золим хушомадгуй карда мегардй, дигар
корро намедонй LU jl ~ <1	j 	jl >
(j?j j-S i r“	<_н‘except
for going around day and night saying nice things to oppressive
rulers, you know no other trade’ (this sentence is contrasted with
a nominalized version in 4.26). Variants of the conjunction are ba
gayr az in/ on ki.
‘In addition to, as well as -ing’: илова бар он ки забон-и араби-ро
комилан медонад, шеър хам мегуяд jCj 4_£lT	6	<-
f-л j_»_i	yl_aLS IjLrjj_c ‘as well as knowing
Arabic perfectly, he composes poetry too’.
‘Apart from [hisj -ing, disregarding the fact that...; although...’: сарф-и/
кать-и назар аз он ки дехдонони тодик хуб мехнат карцанд,
надшаи истехсоли пахта идро нагардид L •. « L
JI 1л->'| ...I Ъ Л, а,r.i \n j-A. -< - >. Iл jl ~.1 a <t^if jl
I jjj.1 4 ~i \_i ‘despite the fact that the Tajik farmers worked
with a will, the cotton harvest quota was not attained’.
4.34 Concessive Clauses
Clauses of Concession may be introduced by any of three conjunctions,
and their variants, meaning ‘(al)though, despite the fact that’: агар чй
<Le.j_Sl, хар чанд	бо (вудуд-и) ин/ он ки j-J (jj) L
4__£ jl\. They may also be signaled at the end of the clause by an
idiom using the adverb хам and the Subjunctive; and by a
combination of the two. The verb is usually in the Present or Past
Subjunctive, according to time reference; though if it refers to a real
event in the past, it can take an Indicative tense (see individual notes).
The concessive clause may be embedded after an initial constituent of
the main clause, as in several examples below.
Examples: агар чй пештар шумо-ро на-дида бошам, ном-и
шумо ба ман маълум будIjl « ± j-Tid. 4^.>$1
j	I д Л‘even though I hadn’t seen you before, your name
was familiar to me’ (Subjunctive, since it remains true that a previous
sighting did not take place; cf. the next example but one). This
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conjunction has the poetical variants rap чй and aP чй <a.jl
(cf. arap ‘if’, 4.35).
Харчанд ‘however (much)’ is one of a class of indefinite
Relative terms (xap куж;о j_a ‘wherever’, etc.; see 4.46), which
are often concessive in sense: гурба харчанд кушиш карда бошад,
муш-ро дошта натавонист . < Л.1 j	< л ^л> 4_>j_S
'J4_x.ilj I j jjij-» ‘however (hard) the cat tried, it could not
catch the mouse’ (indefinite Relatives, being mostly speculative, tend
to take the Subjunctive). Despite its literal meaning, harcand is used
for ‘although’ in general: ман харчанд Бухоро на-рафта бошам,
ва ба корхо-и Х,укумат-и Халхи-и Шурои-и Бухоро бевосита
иштирок, на-карда бошам хам, тамоман аз вай дур будан-ро
на-хостам ojj 4____________________________□__aI jl____,»jjb
4^.9 I La I <c> > * а. л luiLj 1 !•*> । (J 3	I I \ i (jg—* I
fCLuJI j ‘although I had never been to Bukhara, and had not
directly participated in the affairs of the People’s (Soviet) Republic of
Bukhara, I did not want to be completely aloof from it’ (Subjunctive; a
negative fact, still valid at the time of speech).
Similar are the variants (а)гар-чанд-е (ки)	\
(<$): агарчанд-е ки дар очерк-нависй чандон махорат надошта
бошам хам, ман ин хохиш-ро бо хурсандй кабул кардам
(j-°	4 " MiljS tZJjL^-0 jljXa.	jJ (_5.lXa.jAI
jA Jj-j-a ls*1-1-"j-*- Ь I	j-J ‘although I didn’t have that
much skill in writing essays, I gladly accepted this request’ (Subjunctive;
the lack of skill presumably remains in force. For ham, see below);
гарчанд-е ки y-po дах сол надида будам, зуд шинохтам
jv~i —A.L‘lj^i j	Jl и 6j I jjl 4 £	q.j—‘although I
hadn’t seen him for ten years, I quickly recognized him’ (Indicative; a
previous sighting did take place, despite the time lapse—cf. the first
example); гарчанд-е аз охак-у бетон рехта шуда-анд, мармар-и
хакики-ро ба хотир меоранд 4 ~ ->jj ~i ? j < £ aT JI ’»^j <
jXjI _4=LLj I j	a. j-л > xLl &л A ‘though they are/have
been cast of clay and concrete, they remind one of real marble’ (Indicative
Non-Witnessed Perfect, an actual fact).
Built on a prepositional phrase (2.22), bo vujud-i ini on ki is literally
‘with the existence of this, that...’, i.e., ‘for all [its] being...’: бо вучуд-и
SYNTAX
373
он ки Шарофатхола кариб 60 зимистон-у тобистон-ро аз cap
гузаронида-аст, вай одам-е хеле камгап буд <> < jj Ь
бл j j d	J' ’ j и' “ <п 'I—> j q! " ш n j F •  *	° 4_J LA.ol
jj_i uj-S	—A ("j-ojf	‘despite having put behind her
nearly sixty winters and summers, Sharofatkhola was a very taciturn
person’ (Non-Witnessed Perfect Indicative in the Concessive clause;
Simple Past of direct experience in the main clause). Reduced to its
prepositional phrase, this concessive may govern a nominalized clause
with an Infinitive: бо вудуд-и ахамият на-додан-аш... jj_______a.j L.
...(jLAjIaA Q.1 Л&1 ‘despite her not paying attention (to it)...’ (cf. also
ham below).
This conjunction has several shortened variants: бо он ки вай-ро
шахсан хабар карда будам, ба мехмонй наомад I JlS $ L.
j-oLA (_S-AI л n ।	j^A. I A .7.‘although I told him personal-
ly, he did not come to the reception’; бо хама-и ин ки ман хам
хеле гурусна будам, нисф-и нахори-ро хурда на-тавонистам L.
6JJJ—A. I JcSjL-$A> . Ё	<LA-u.j_S ulj A jj-o 4-S L->—11 Д-Д
jLLcuJilj_AA ‘for all that I was very hungry too, I couldn’t eat half of the
breakfast’.
Occasionally a concessive sense emerges sufficiently from two juxta-
posed clauses without a conjunction, the verb of the first being in the
subjunctive: сад азм-у ахд кунй, аз таг-и ин дела-хо даромада
на-метавонй 6J Лjj Lb<d_jj ~ jl .^^А^ j_$ с j f j—с '
<_£-А I jA^ л VIeven if] you make a hundred promises and protestations,
you can never get out from under this red tape’ (cf. Conditionals
without ‘if’, 4.38).
In order to focus attention on the concessive clause, it may be
postposed: Маднун ба Лайлй айб-и но-хак мегузорад, бо вудуд-и
он ки Лайлй Маднун-ро тарк на-карда-аст ^l-l l_> Jj ' ?•
6jj^A I J (j^y-A —a I .1 4 AJL1 <.ijl.'iC » л	. r
‘Majnun unfairly blames Layli, even though Layli did not desert
Majnun [—it was M. who deserted L.]’.
A weaker concessive clause (already illustrated under Disjunctive
conjuncts, 4.14) that is usually postposed is obtained with hoi on ki
‘whereas (in fact)’ (lit. ‘the state [being] that...’): модар писар-аш-ро
сарзаниш кард, хол он ки писар дар ин ходиса айбдор набуд
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j I  < J i г 4_jjL^. о—1 I jj < <i i 4 S i J J La. < aTi i jj i n lj {J^'J ‘ “ 1 jjLо
j‘the mother scolded her son, whereas in fact he was not to blame
in this incident’. The relative conjunct дар сурат-е ки	jj
4__S, lit. ‘in the case/ situation where’,when postposed, may have the
same sense (for this conjunction in a Conditional sentence, see 4.38).
Frequent and peculiar to Tajik is the concessive use of the adverb
х,ам ‘also, even’ following a clause-final Subjunctive: х,аво хунук
на-бошад хам, барф ба донахо-и калон-калон-и лаклакй
меборид jiLS JiL-S (_sLa4_Jj L_> i_sj_i .^Jb л Л.1	< Ijjb
‘although the weather was not cold, the snow was falling in
large, fluffy flakes’; одамон хомуш истода бошанд хам, аз
нигох-ашон аломат-и но-розигй пайдо буд j__________al_i. jl___ejf
Ij ।। <2*1 Lj	jf <^Jb л j 6jl **“ *1 though
the people were silent, signs of displeasure were apparent from their
looks’ (Present Progressive Subjunctive, 3.28); сол-и у ба чил наздик
расида бошад хам, то он вакт у зан на-гирифтагй буд jl JLlu
__________дj> jjj jI <-143 cj/ Ls <^Jb л inl i ал. i mj <£ ijj-j J^. 4_i
‘despite having almost reached the age of forty, so far he had never
married’ (Past Subjunctive, 3.26); Ч,ура пиразан-ро бор-и аввал
дида истода бошад хам, у-ро хамон дам шинохт _________________а.
 ~ i-У I	(jl sJb Ijjl	<ol—1 6jl T in 11 (Jjl jLl I j tj jJ * ‘
‘even though Jura was seeing the old woman for the first time, he
recognized her instantly’ (Present Progressive Subjunctive of didari).
Clause-final ham may also be used after an Infinitive phrase: дар
холат-и мурда будан-аш хам, ба котилон лаънат ва нафрат-хо
Л
мехонд Lb uu j- Lj ь"1 I jjI—A—1 <^Jb (jL—1 —0 > 11 j j
j-j|‘Despite his being dead, he invoked curses and invective on
the killers’ (‘even in the state of being dead’, i.e., ‘even in death...’;
this formulation shows how this use of ham is consistent with its
adverbial use in a simple NP, e.g., аз барф хам сафедтар i_sj_j jl
yjj ii Ц1 j»_A ‘even whiter than snow’ (2.47).
Despite the frequent appearance of bosad in this structure (as either
copula or auxiliary), it works with the Subjunctive of other verbs:
давон забон-и тож,ики-ро на-донад хам, гап-и маро фахмид
4 I.р д> jJlxj I Ju#*Lia.Ll (jLi j jIja. ‘although the young-
ster doesn’t know Tajik, he understood me’; хар Макка равад хам,
SYNTAX
375
боз хамон хар аст jA jl-a-A 31_> <Р д> jj j <La ‘though an
ass may go to Mecca, it’s still the same ass’ (prov.).
For emphasis, a Concessive conjunction may be combined with the
Subjunctive and ham: агар чй мо-ро бо зандир баста монанд
хам, зандир-ро канда меравем jASLa 1 ~t,u . j _, ? '.3 L I jLaC^dsl
и-* I jj j ?;з £_л ‘though they bind us even with chains,
we will break the chains and go’; ин сухан гарчанд-е бо оханг-и
навозиш гуфта шуда бошад хам, дар дил-и ман хавф-е падид
овард jj	6 jjj a S ,jLjlj-j L> j-S (j_il
jjjf	(j_a Jj ‘these words, even though spoken in a tone
of blandishment, brought fear to my heart’.
Concessive conjunctions are sometimes reinforced by commencing
the second (main) clause with a disjunctive conjunction such as аммо
iL I, лекин jjSLJ . or вале (jJ j ‘but, yet, nevertheless’ (see 4.12): дар
кор фармудан агар чй у-ро аз одамон-и калон фарк, на-
мекарданд, аммо дар музд додан ба хатор-и бачагон-аш
мешумурданд Jj_s jiLS jL-ajl 3I Ijjl <La.j_Sl jjj_aj_j jl_S jj
jl.L-Л.1 (jjlj jj_a jj Lal < jjjj£‘though in
putting [him] to work they did not distinguish him from the adults,
(yet) when it came to paying [him| they counted him as a child’ (‘in
exploiting... in giving wages’; Durative Past tenses refer to actual
practice. Note that the personal enclitic -as represents the direct object;
see 2.30); замистон-и он сер-бориш бошад хам, вале бахор-аш
тароват-афзо-ст (ji>jI * ( J j	a j	(jiijLij—>—и jj (jl * -  аЗ
cj-culj—iltxjjljJa ‘however wet the winter there might be, (still) the
spring is fresh and lush’.
CONDITIONAL SENTENCES
4.35 Conditionals (1): Basic Rules; Possible Conditions
The primary conjunction denoting a condition is drap j_SI ‘if’, less
commonly хар rox *LSjJb ‘if’ (lit. ‘any time, whenever’; sometimes
written in Cyrillic as one word, xaprox); before a negated verb, ‘if not,
unless’. There are three basic modes in Tajik Persian within which the
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proposition#., then... may be realized: (1) Possible conditions, as in If
you work, you will be paid', (2) Counterfactual conditions, as in If you
worked! had worked, you would be! would have been paid', and (3)
Actual conditions, as in If you are! were working, why aren’t! weren't
you being paid?. These will each be exemplified in this and the next
two sections. Apart from use of the conjunctions at the beginning of a
preposed Conditional clause (the protasis), there are other ways of
expressing these basic modes, and certain idioms of a conditional nature;
these will be presented mostly under 4.38.
Possible conditions. When a condition is proposed as the potential
basis for a present situation or a future act or state, the verb of the
protasis is in the Present Subjunctive; that of the apodosis (the clause
of consequence; not necessarily the main clause in a complex sentence),
when it refers to present time, is in the Present Indicative (or, if
appropriate, the Imperative or Optative): агар хато накунам, шумо-ро
мешиносам > ...I '	* I .p I U< ^Sl ‘if I’m not mistaken,
I know you’.
If the verb of the apodosis refers to future time, it is in either the
Present or the Definite Future (or the Imperative): абр агар аз к,ибла
хезад, сахт борон мешавад <jl jL о. \ ц, <il_Ls JI ^-Sl j-J
fj____‘if clouds come from the south, there will be heavy rain’
(prov.; note that agar may follow the subject NP); агар ба он до
рафтан хох;етон, ман рох;барй мекунам	—ij (—j—
л '.< . j »I j ~  *1 ‘if you want to go there, I will guide
you’; агар он до-ро то ба зер-и об х;ам кованд, аз инх,о асар-е
на-хох;анд ёфт 1_$_Ь1 j1	.л? 5-?	сЛ j-SI
cu.sU с, adj ‘even if they search there underwater, they will not
find a trace of them’ (as here, the condition may be reinforced by the
adverb хам placed after the verb of the protasis; cf. 4.34, last
paragraphs).
If the condition is a punctual act, to be completed before the action
of the main clause can take place, the Simple Past may substitute for
the Subjunctive: агар омад, гуед ки назд-и ман дарояд . j_ol j_£l
jj <t_S j__________иj-S. ‘if (and when) he comes [lit. ‘came’], tell
him to come and see me’; x;ap гох, y-po пайдо кардам, мекушам
-> Л, < о	I < '  I jjl б!_5j_a ‘if/ when/ once I find him, I’ll kill
SYNTAX
377
[him]’.
In either clause, any finite verb before the last might be replaced
by a Past Participle I form, either as a serial verb coordinate or part
of a Conjunct Verb: агар мо ба вай ёрй на-дихем, {ба зуди
монда шуда} аз кор баромада ме-монад cjjLj cjj-j I____________» j___SI
j-i jl£ JI {6jJ>Lo jj-^} j».1**' ‘unless we help
him, he will {soon tire and} stop working altogether’ (‘...having tired,
will leave-and-stay-put from work’). Here the first participle suda is
part of a serial verb coordinate (4.19), in which monda is an adjective;
for the second, a Conjunct verb, see 5.20, under mondan.
In a past narrative, the action of the apodosis may be embedded (as
a nominalized sentential complement) in an expression, couched in a
past tense, of its perception in the past time of the narrative (here, as a
foregone conclusion), which is technically the main clause: агар дар
pox ба даст наафтам хам, {дар худ-и он до дастгир шуда
кушта гардидан-ам}... мухаррар буд	cu-luxj б1 j jJ j-SJ
j* ... j—ij4 ~ bi S 6 j J7i j	I j bjjba. jj j « even if I
were not captured on the way, it was certain that I would be seized and
killed at the place itself’ (i.e., the hero thought then: ‘it is certain that,
even if I am not captured on the way, I will be seized...’; the rules of
the English quotative past couch the translation in a past conditional,
whereas those of Persian preserve the tense sequence of immediate
discourse—see 4.15, under Persian style: Subordinate verbs).
Depending on the extent of nominalization, it is possible for the
main clause to be without any finite verb: Карим фикр кард, ки
агар Мирак ба Тошканд рафта, дуруст хонад, дар байн-и
се-чор сол одам-и даркорй ва давлатй шуда баргаштан-аш
мумкин ,х.1 1-ujJ <<L-S_4j	«Lj j-л j_S I <L$
(j"1 Sj-J	JJ J	JL-ьи jL^. <—CU	Jj « J-jlj-k
(j^-a-o'Karim thought that if Mirak went to Tashkent and studied prop-
erly, in three or four years he might return as a person of consequence,
a government official’ (‘if he studies... having become... his return [is]
possible’; the copula ast ‘is’ is omitted after the nominalized Infinitive
complement).
Further illustrations of possible conditions are in 4.38.
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4.36 Conditionals (2): Counterfactual
To express a hypothesis which is not being, or is unlikely to be,
realized—or which in the past was not realized—the Imperfect form
(3.13) is used in both clauses (in this function, this form will be called
the Conditional tense): агар ин гуна кор-х;о нодуруст мебуд,
муллохр... у-ро манъ мекарданд eu	jl—£ j < (j_>l j_g|
aSa( LayL_o .jj-i, <<. ‘if this kind of activity were immoral,
the clergy would ban it’ (note that as a Conditional tense the Imperfect
of budan ‘to be’ normally takes the prefix me-, which it does not when
functioning as the Durative Past); агар ман cap-и вацт ме-
фахмидам,... корхр ранг-и дигар мегирифтанд j___________<-u З-о j_SI
a'i~i «LftjlS n о	j ‘if I had understood
in time, events would have taken a different turn’.
In the preceding example, the adverbial in the protasis is sufficient
to indicate that the condition was not realized in the past. In many
cases, such contextual cues within the sentence or in the broader context
suffice to disambiguate these two distinct aspects of the counterfactual.
If not, the Pluperfect may be used in one of the clauses (usually the
protasis), to fix the time frame in the past: агар хамрох-и ман
рафта будед, у-ро медидед Ijjl <<t T	alj—^л ^_SI
‘if you had gone along with me, you would have seen him’.
The Northern dialect form of the Pluperfect using Past Participle II
(see 3.16) is also found: агар чашм-и Ёдгор-ро андеша-и оянда-и
сиёх торик на-кардагй мебуд, у ин холат-и Гулнор-ро дида аз
аввал х,ам зиёдтар вола-ву шайдо-и вай мегардид у Л..a. __________SI
CuJ La. (j-ll JI < Jj-i, f-a , ySj^SS i S I jLS sL.lj-ч ал‘i 1T % ui ij-jl I j jLSjLi
1—Ш J <lJlj j-SjLj j f-® Jjl jl	I J J I ~I I S ‘if
Yodgor’s vision had not been clouded by the prospect of a black
future, he would have seen this feature of Gulnor’s and been even
more infatuated with her from the start’ (‘if the prospect... had not
clouded...’; exceptionally, a suppletive conditional me- is prefixed to
the auxiliary bud in this variant of the Pluperfect).
Two parallel or serial conditions may be joined by ва j ‘and’,
with agar normally repeated: агар хунарманд-ро аз бе хунар фарк
мекарданд, ва агар кддр-и хунармандон-ро медонистанд,...
SYNTAX
379
I j jl	jJ_i j^l j <	(jjj-S j-lA (j-j jl I	j-2 I
 ,СГш.'>Ь(_га ‘if they distinguished between the artist and the unartist-
ic, and if they appreciated the value of artists,...’.
In a protasis featuring a subject X and a negated Conditional of
budan without an apparent complement, the sense is ‘if X were not I
had not been there, had it not been for X’: агар хамк,ишлок;-ам
Али-и кал намебуд, эхтимол орзухо-и чанд-моха-и ман ба
бод мерафт	JLn..A.-».l	JS urLc » W а „а
iXj-Sj ("j-o jL <u jj SlaLo‘had it not been for my fellow-villager
Bald Ali, my hopes of several months past would probably have gone
with the wind’.
Either clause of a Conditional sentence may embed a complement
or adverbial clause independent of the conditional construction: arap
ман медонистам, {ки ту хамин хел буздил будай,} {ба худо
ки,} ту-ро... намеовардам	ys <l£
I	1л \ 1} {(с51 6jj_> Jjj_i‘if I had known that you
were this cowardly, I swear I wouldn’t have brought you’ (the protasis
embeds a sentential complement (4.15) with its verb in the Non-
Witnessed Perfect; the apodosis includes an expletive lacking an original
VP, ‘[I swear] by God that...’). Nominalized clauses may also be
embedded: агар вай зинда мебуд {имруз ба амал баромадан-и
суханхо-и худаш-ро дида} чй кадар-хо хурсанд мешуд ^Sl
4_а. I j (jXiJj-a.	—uj JJ—oTj-J J n * ,i jjj—al Jj_j 6jjj
.ij-u,Lbjj_5 ‘if he were alive today, how very happy he
would be to see his words realized’ (‘having seen the putting-into-
practice of his words’; a serial coordinate with an Infinitive phrase
object).
4.37 Conditionals (3): Actual Conditions
These have also been called logical, or real, conditions. In this mode,
the condition is neither potential nor contrary to fact, but is accepted as
being currently in force {if he is sleeping, don’t wake him or if they
have arrived, they should phone) or intended and imminent {if you’re
going to drink it, hurry up) or having been in force in the past {if he
was sleeping, I wasn’t aware of it). The sentence has more in common
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with a circumstantial than with a conditional sentence, and is pre-
eminently Non-Witnessed (inferential, quotative, presumptive) in mode:
if you are/ have been working too hard, take a break implies ‘since, as
you claim (or as I infer from your appearance), you are/ have been
working too hard,..,’. Except for stative verbs {if you know! knew, why
don’t! didn’t you say?) it is formally distinct in English, marked by the
Present Progressive, Present Perfect or Perfect Progressive, or quasi-
future tenses, whereas punctual and past-future tenses mark the possible
and counterfactual conditionals {if you work/ worked, you will! would
tire yourself). By its nature, the apodosis often comprises a question,
an imperative or an optative; the tense of the protasis is therefore the
chief diagnostic.
In Tajik, too, this kind of conditional construction occurs in four
time frames, and is distinguished from both possible and counterfactual
conditionals by the tenses of, primarily, the protasis.
Present: If the condition is presumed to be continuing at the moment
(or to be universally valid), the verb in the protasis is in the
Present Indicative or Present Progressive Subjunctive, and that of
the apodosis in some appropriate primary tense (which may be the
Imperative or Optative): агар х,оло кор мекунй, халал на-
расонам JLA	jLS ^La. _^1 ‘if you’re working
now, let me not disturb you’; агар зиндагй камин аст, бояд
ба сол-е намонда мемурд ajL	aSj j__Si
ja ь j-Sl. A II  if this is life, one/ we should die before
reaching one year old’ (in the apodosis, an impersonal modal
construction; see 4.20); агар дарсх,ои хондаги-ро хонда истода
бошад, халал нарасон! aaSlIJuSjJ>Ij_A	jj j_SI
JIA . j AL 6 J ~ ... J ‘if he is/ has been keeping up with
the lessons taught, then don’t spoil it!’.
Future: If the condition is inferred as intended or imminent, the Durative
Past Subjunctive (3.27; the only Non-Witnessed subjunctive tense)
is used in the protasis: хуб, шумо намехурда бошед, ман
хурам j_a . ?  .t.I . ojjjA. , .-«-jl n	<«_.jA. ‘well, if (as it
seems) you’re not going to eat, I’ll eat’; xamir mekara bosit, tez
kunit {= хамир мекарда бошед, тез кунед	« А
«.'«< .Xi m.L) ‘if you’re going to make dough, hurry up’ (the
SYNTAX
381
former examples are from MLT, the latter from spoken Northern
dialect; for the omission of agar, see 4.38). This tense apparently
may also replace the Perfect Subjunctive in present reference:
агар хамдигар-ашон-ро дуст ме-дошта бошанд, дигар чй?
S	. j <л * з.Ц 4" Л-lj^	I j j I	* л as j^ | if they
love each other, so what?’ (lit. ‘...what else (is needed)?’; the
Indicative in this case would be dust me-dorand\ see 3.8).
Present resultative: If the condition is presumed to have just been
accomplished, the verb of the protasis is in the Past Subjunctive:
ин китоб-ро хонда бошед агар, чаро наовардед? j—J
S jxjjjLS Ijja. «j^l ? ЛЬ Ij-A Ij.__.UlS ‘if you’ve read this
book, why didn’t you bring it?’ (for postposed agar, see further
4.38); агар расида бошад, чаро телефон намекунад? j_______________SI
у AS * j «I ~ I jja.	 . ..j‘if he has arrived, why doesn’t
he telephone?’; агар дар шахр нарафта бошад, хатман дар
хона хохад буд «с.Li. jj Lx_l.a.	<_S_iji j g Л. jj j_2l
jj_> j_a>lj__a. ‘if he hasn’t gone to the city, he will surely be at
home’ (here the Definite Future tense is inferential in respect of
present time; see 4.21, ‘Will be’).
Past When an actual condition (in the examples below, iterative or
alternating) is described as the context of a habitual past action or
state, the Present Subjunctive is used in the protasis, and the Durative
Past in the apodosis. This sequence of tenses is diagnostic in
combination, since, though other types of conditional sentence
typically have one of these forms in one or the other clause, the
combination is unique: агар хаво бад бошад, худ ба болохона
даромада мехобид ва агар хаво хуб бошад, ба лаб-и хавз-и
Гозиён мерафт 6j_aTjj	j, j 4>L	IjJt> j_Sl
ok? 0^3-=“	‘-^k1 *^3^ 'j-* J
‘if the weather was bad he went/ would go to the upper room and
sleep, and if it was good he went/ would go down to the Ghozion
pool’; савдогарон Маскав-рав бошанд, бо тилло бозй
мекарданд ( (gjL. yLlaU <л*.....L. jjjS.n л (jlj^ljj-ы.
‘merchants, if they were heading for Moscow, were playing with
gold’; агар вай хартозй карда, нохост афтад, Бибирачаб
мехрубонй карда, cap-у руи у-ро аз гард-у хок тоза мекард
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н < J-lil dJ-uulj-S-L	LgjiLj-A
Jj-^( «> jts	j jj_S jl I jjl j j_uu .6jj_S ‘if he was
donkey-racing and happened to fall, Bibi Rajab would fuss over
him and clean his head and face’ (the instances of karda in each
clause, as serial coordinates, respectively anticipate the Present
Subjunctive and the Past Durative).
4.38 Conditionals (4): Variations and Idioms
Three morphological variants of the conjunction agar may occur in
poetry: rap вар jj and ap jl. Syntactic variations are as follows.
Agar postposed: The conjunction arap j_Sl ‘if’ may appear at the end
of the protasis (a feature of Northern dialects): ягон чил-та каду
тирад агар, нагз j_*3 <j-Sl > Lj Ja. jIXj ‘if he gets
forty or so pumpkins, that’s fine’ (note also that the copula may
be omitted from the apodosis in speech, as from most main clauses);
vayo ravan agar, a i-su meguzaran (= вай-хо раванд агар, аз
ин су мегузаранд	j ... I jl <jJijj Ц >j) ‘if
they go, they’ll pass by this way’ (see also 4.37, under Present
resultative). In shorter propositions, agar may even follow the
complete sentence: na-merum guya ci agar? (= «на-меравам»
гуяд агар, чй [мешавад]?	| <La. < j£l	j u-^)
‘what if he won’t go?’ (‘...says “I’m not going”...’).
Clause inversion: If the protasis is felt to be more important than the
apodosis, they may be inverted: xama-и ин масъалахо-ро хал
кардан мумкин мешуд, агар ин суханон-и мо-ро идорахо-и
дахлдор мешуниданд	J=>- ।I ‘  « <j_J
jjj__l "l di ц-а jl jlkj 6 jl jl I JI_о j I '1 4 1.1 (j_l I I Iui (jjo
‘all these problems could be solved, if the competent authorities
would only listen to what we say’ (Counterfactual, ‘it would be
possible to solve...’). This is more often done when the conjunction
is other than the usual agar (see also examples below): ман ин
кор-ро мекунам, ба шарт-е ки музд-и нагз медиханд
,и, j_kS Jj-J ц-laj A J - '»<ц, - IjjLS (j-jl ‘I’ll do this
job, on condition that I’m well paid’ (Indicative in the protasis,
even though this is a Possible condition, which gives additional
SYNTAX
383
weight to the demand).
Omission of agar, etc.: If the meaning is clear, the conjunction may be
omitted from any type of conditional sentence. This occurs most
often in colloquial speech and proverbial sayings, but may also be
found in the written language: ба он но нигарй,... ток,и-ат
меафтад-е! l^l- a_s_il	(just you)
look there, and your hat will fall off!’; яке омада монад, чй
кор мекунем?	‘[if] somebody
turns up, what do we do?’ (pmada mondan ‘to come-and-stay’,
i.e. arrive unexpectedly; see 5.20); ягон панчод дадам-и дигар
метохтам, ба он до мерасидам (j-e	а б!	\ j
» । т- 'a ;	<l~‘[if] I had galloped about fifty paces
farther, I would have made it’;apo6a мебуд, боз хубтар мешуд
л *. a j " jj < jL	‘if there had been a cart, it
would have been better’ (see also 4.37, under Future).
Substitution of ki: Like temporal and circumstantial clauses, conditional
clauses in which the sense is evident may replace the explicit
conjunction with the all-purpose complementizer ки <t_£ ‘that’, in
second (rarely, third) position in the protasis (see 4.31): вай ки
омад, ин но дарояд j-jTjJ I > 'i_J .х-Л ‘if [if and when/
once] he comes, have him come in here’ (cf. 4.35 for this tense
sequence of the possible condition); бой ки омада, ба давли-ам
даромад, дидбон ба ман хабар медидад	—Л 1—$
j - < (j-a-j	f'cs-lJ ^/if/ when the rich
man comes and enters [the courtyard of] my house, the houseboy
informs/ will inform me’ (the participle following ki is a serial
coordinate anticipating daromad, which is the same Simple Past
denoting a fulfilled possible condition as in the preceding example).
Conjunctions other than agar and hargoh may introduce conditional
clauses, often specifying a narrower stipulation or a more specialized
time frame, which are reflected in translation:
ба шарт-е ки пахта аз гуза... кашида тайёр карда шуда бошад,
як одам дар як шабонаруз... як пуд пахта-ро аз даллонй
мегузаронад jLJ= 6Л_| jj-^ j' ** ~
jl ' j*1 ~	‘J—«>J—i
all	__=> ‘provided that the cotton has already been
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extracted from the bolls... and prepared, one person within twenty-
four hours... can put one pud [36 lb.] of cotton through the spinning
process’ (‘on condition that... causes one pud... to pass’; Actual
condition); ман ин кор-ро мекунам, ба шарт-е ки шумо
розй бошед I .л Л.	4, >	IjjLS
jj-iL ‘I will do this, provided you agree’ (Possible condition, the
protasis postposed for emphasis).
When the protasis is postposed, relative conjuncts like ba sart-e
ki may insert the main verb before ki, producing a kind of pseudo-
cleft sentence resembling a relative clause (cf. Word order, 4.27):
ман ба ин савол-ат ба шарт-е давоб медидам, ки дар чи
туям, не намегуй <£	,_>!, Д, cJI
answer this question of yours on
condition that you won’t say no to whatever I say’ (Possible
condition).
Дар сурат-е ки	(as a Concessive conjunction ‘whereas
[in reality]’, see 4.34), when preposed, has a Conditional sense
which applies to two distinct modes:
(1) ‘In the event that, in case...’, postulating a future eventuality (a
Possible Condition): дар сурат-е ки шумо ба хона-и ман
рафта натавонед, ба ман хабар расонед I а а,	_>j
j .A	< j_p I yis <d_a j (j-o <lsI kJ in the event that/ if
by some chance you cannot come [lit. ‘go’] to my house, let me
know’; дар сурат-е ки дамин об ба гушт-и бадан падн
шавад, азоб-и тодат-нопазир медидад д	jj-^a jj
о j 4 7  -1 a IL,,_>|j__c	' ''j? ' v_>1 ‘in the
event that this water spreads/ should this water spread to the flesh
of the body, it produces an unbearable pain’ (Present Subjunctive
in the protasis in both cases). ‘In case..., to stop...’ in a postposed
purpose clause is mabodo: see 4.40.
(2) ‘Assuming that, so long as, if (in fact)’, accepting an existing
condition (an Actual condition): дар сурат-е ки масъала равшан
аст, бадс лозим нест	j _________a <l_S ^д jj
 г '	‘*f indeed/ seeing that the matter is clear, there
is no need for discussion’ (Present Indicative in both clauses); 6a
эдтимол дар дайрат дам монда бошанд, ки {дар сурат-е
SYNTAX
385
ки инхел одамон ок.ил-у бо тадбир хастанд}, чаро амир,
ба сифат-и елчи-и давлат чунин як шахс-и нодон-и аз
сиёсат дур-ро интихоб намуда-аст cl. j j *. jj J1 n ~ I;
L (J-fll-c. jL.ajT .J *	.1 t	ja] 4—• * '* %! * bxjl_a
I > j-11? .-lj'1	। 1 1 1 ° ‘ ‘ ‘J_1_' J-?’ ‘ ' 1 ~_1 11 J_
- !	._.La>~i 11 IjjjJ 1 “! *jl ijIjLj £_у. ‘probab-
ly, too, they wondered—assuming that men of this kind are
intelligent and sensible—why the emir had chosen such an ignorant
and politically naive [‘far from policy’l person to be the state
ambassador’. The conditional clause here is a parenthesis (brack-
eted; the verb hastand is Indicative) between the main clause and
its sentential complement (the indirect question caro amir...). The
verb of the main clause is in the Past Subjunctive only because it
is dependent on the modal adverbial ba ehtimol ‘probably’ (4.21),
so it does not contravene the rule for an Actual condition.
мабодо IjU-e ‘may it not be’, a frozen precative (see 3.7), is followed
by the (negated) Present Subjunctive, and has ki to introduce the
apodosis: мабодо падар-ам на-фахмад, ки цанг мекунад!
‘’7	* ц	I d j * ‘if my father finds out,
he’ll be mad!’; мабодо шурбо на-бошад, ки ман намехурам
»	L IjLj ‘if it’s soup, I won’t eat
it’. (In each example, the literal sense is ‘let X not be so, for in
that case...’.)
кошки < Л.1 < ‘would that, if only’ (see also 3.13, 3.25, 3.26, 3.34),
expressing a wish for an unlikely future eventuality or regret for
an unrealized past act or state, usually takes the Conditional tense:
кошки имруз ха во хуб мешуд, ба лаб-и дарьё мерафтем
f ‘ “j u>"	1 11 ‘	'"о"	<<CuL£ ‘if only
the weather were nice today, we could go to the river bank’. Like
mabodo, koski more often expresses only the protasis of a
contextually established regret: кошки ба мо мегуфт! <iX Л.1 <
Lo_>‘if only he had told us!’.
Single Conditional clause: Similarly to the unfulfilled wish of koski, an
injunction or remonstration may take the form of a solitary con-
ditional clause: акдллан бор-ат-ро ба замин мемондй yl—
.rjSl—о —о j .	 I jcl.jU‘you might at least (have) put your
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baggage down’; фошофош мегуфтед »	° jjhLiLiLi
‘you should have said so straight out’.
вагарна <lsj, набошад j  *1 j A hybrid construction joins an
expository clause (declarative or imperative) to the apodosis of a
conditional (alluding to the exposition as its protasis) by means of
the disjunctive adverbials вагарна «lSj_______S j (lit. ‘and if not’) or
набошад xiLs (lit. ‘let it not be’), i.e., ‘otherwise, or else’: ман
пир шудам, вагарна худам хам мекучидам л л, j_____________j_,
j S j ‘I have grown old, or else I myself
would move on’; на-дихед, бархам дода фирисгонед он хат-ро,
вагарна хар сол хамин хат-ро бароварда хамин тавр дандол
cap мекунад j 3Т л-Al ~ ...j-Ь ьл1л j^ft_>-j  * »'
I f g-Л J tn I •^*1'4 jj—V ft Д>	1 I j -La.a. «I ft JI—
‘don’t pay, tear up that edict and send it back, otherwise every
year he’ll bring out this edict and start the quarrel all over again’;
уро ба ягон чиз хурдан мадбур кун, набошад бехол шуда,
як дард-аш сад дард мешавад Jjjj__________3 j > jl^ _ 1 l_,jl
j'j—ш	Jjj a < <-»	«Ja—1	JI it ' '"I ? 1 JJ J ? "
‘get him to eat something, or else he’ll fail sick and become a
hundred times worse’ (‘his one pain will become a hundred’).
These disjunctives are frozen forms, and their negative na extends
its scope over the entire proposition of the preceding clause: хайф
ки дар давонй шумо барин устод надоштам, набошад,
дар пиронсолагй хеле акд-ам даромада мемонд <_$ . а
J_1_1 J J < Л-AiL i '1 .iiljJi л! "1 jJ-1 j-1 l л >» (-j-jl j-a. jj
aJil—o бд_оТ_)3 (al« c ul_i A. ‘a pity I didn’t have a teacher like
you when I was young, or in my old age my mind would have
stayed pretty sharp’ (nabosad means ‘had such not been the case’,
i.e., ‘if I had’). For vagarna and nabosad as disjunctive conjunctions,
see 4.12.
__	J	J
ий мешуд - Xj-Ai^ «La., etc. ‘what if...’: These idioms proposes
or justify an action by asking in a rhetorical apodosis чй мешавад/
мешуд ,uiu_i a\ лj-Aijz, «La. ‘what could happen [if]...’, or asserting
хеч набошад д-j.l__________-uj g-j-ft ‘nothing would happen [if]...’, i.e.,
‘why should [I] not...?’: чй мешавад, агар ки ман хам аз
пас-и Зулайхо пахта-чинй равам? «u_S j_SI «л^—а.^ «La.
SYNTAX
387
о 'ij-ч <. T_A _i I \ _i IJ jl j»_a> ‘why shouldn’t I follow
behind Zulaikho as we pick cotton?’; хеч набошад ки, хафта-е
якбор ба чойхона барои ба хамин хел сухбат кунем g
Я	"
| Г i J J  <ч <J J A. (j-t П д I (_jl J-J Lk 11а. 4_> J1—1 <_S_1 (_jl 4 ~i j a <^ J_il_i_j
-> _i-~iX ‘so what if once a week we go to the teashop to chat like
this’.
CLAUSES USUALLY POSTPOSED
4.39 Temporal and Explanatory Clauses
Many of the clause types described in the sections above, though
usually placed first in a sentence, may be postposed if focus is to be
switched to them. In the case of clauses that generally follow the main
clause, either they are introduced by different conjunctions from those
associated with preposed clauses or, if the conjunctions are the same
(notably ки <$ and to Ls), they have different functions.
Temporal clauses: A punctual act occurring while a durative act is
still in progress, and perhaps interrupting it, is introduced by ki in a
postposed clause: у дар фикр-и худ банд буд, ки як нафар
дар-и хона-аш-ро тад-тад кард 4_S . хЪ jjj jl
jp Jp I j (jil jj j_LL ‘he was immersed in his own thoughts
when someone knocked at the door of his room’; Нуралй аспашро
ба мех баста истода буд, ки Хочиумар намоён шуд
jLIaS j-a-c <S jj_i	4j I Jl)\i ..J‘Nurali
was tethering his horse to the stake when Hojiumar appeared’. The
verb of the first clause (technically the mam clause, but rhetorically
the less important) is usually in a durative or progressive tense, that of
the second in a punctual tense (though a punctual tense is not excluded
for the main clause: see 4.45, under Not a relative).
If the first action was almost, but not quite, completed before the
second one intervened, the tense of the former is Pluperfect: мо дуруст
ба дар-и идорахона на-расида будем, ки борон cap шуд I—о
л л, 6U*-1	 j-j	«>jbl jJj o^jj'we had not
quite/ barely reached the office door when the rain started’.
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Explanatory clauses: These clauses offer a reason for the operation
of the first (main) clause—they state the cause, or the basis for the
inference, or warn of an alternative; if the information was obtained by
inference or hearsay, the verb will be in the Non-Wintessed mode.
They are here treated alike under the rubric “explanatory” because
their coming after the clause of action (out of logical or narrative
sequence) seems often to endow them with an editorial rather than a
narrative or participatory nuance—the speaker is explaining the action
as an adjunct or afterthought.
Those conjunctions meaning ‘because, since’ which exclusively
postpose their clause are зеро (ки) (<£) Ij, чунки and the
colloquial чаро ки <1___$ I j_^. In addition, those mainly preposing
conjunctions of cause or circumstance (4.30) which sometimes head a
postposed clause are чун <jj . ‘since, as’, барои он ки
‘forasmuch as, because’, and бинобар он ки j-> L>_> ‘on account
of (the fact that)’.
Examples: китоб-атон-ро ба у надодам, зеро у-ро надидам
I jjl Ij-jJ jL I j jULjElS ‘I didn’t give him your book,
because I didn’t see him’; ман тарсида кадам-ам-ро тез-тез мондам,
зеро ки онхо-ро оворагард ва дузд гумон карда будам
jjj j Jj-SojIjT IjL^-jT 4-S Ij-jJ	j_ы j_____LJ I J ^_o J—J о л 1 ill
з-j t>jj_£ jl—‘I was scared and quickened my pace, because I
thought they were vagabonds and thieves’; дехконон аз хукмрони-и
заминдорон озод карда мешаванд, чунки замин акнун мол-и
заминдор нест j>j£ jljT jljljj-i_____<> j lf-'Ij_j1 и Lit___Laj
<z । < u. j । (j I j I '	n j (J La (j^ASI (j i a j	the peasants
are being liberated from the rule of the landowners, because now the
land does not belong to the landowners’ (cunki is more common than
cun in the second clause; cunki is not used in the first clause. For cun
‘since, as’ in a preposed clause, see 4.28); ман дер мондам, чаро
ки ука-ам касал шуд J	<t_S lj_a. <^jS(_a j_jj (j_a ‘I
was late because my little brother got sick’.
Baroi on ki may embed the preposition and Sentential pronoun in a
leading main clause, following with ki and the explanatory clause: ман
ин амал-ро барои он тарк накарда гашта-ам, ки писар-ам
асп-ро дуст медорад < Т Л.	^1 j-i	(j_J (j_o
SYNTAX
389
.^.i шjj I	ц>_1 4_$ <j»l ‘(the reason) I haven’t stopped
doing this (is) because my son loves the horse’. Note that the same
conjunction in the same structure may have an entirely different purport,
that of a Purpose clause, if the dependent verb is in the Present
Subjunctive: ман шумо-ро барон ин дет задам, ки ба ман ёрй
дихед lSjL? d-°-? ‘fJ j	*->*• n ca,*ed
you so that you might help me’. (For an example of postposed binobaron
ki, see 4.30; for baroi in/ on ki before a Purpose clause, see 4.40).
Apart from these, the all-purpose ki may introduce a broader range
of explanations: бояд Шодй хам аз ин корхои модари мехрубонаш
завк, мегирифта бошад, ки дак,аррос-занон механдид j-jL-j
> 4 Л аjjj (jL-jLij-j—a jjLa jjjLa jLS jj_jl JI
jjLS‘Shodi must have derived enjoyment from the
things his dear mother did, that he laughed so loud’ (witnessed reason);
эхтимол ба як сайрусиёхат-и калон рафта бошад, ки зан-аш-ро
хам даъват карда буда-аст сда.1 j j j-x .X_ > J< « "i -J
...I 6jcuj-cj	I jijiJij 4_S < j-iiL 4 ~ aj ‘he has probably
gone on a major tour, since he seems to have invited his wife along
too’ (Non-Witnessed Past; ki introduces the basis for the inference);
ин гап-ро ба падар-ам нагуй, ки ту-ро данг мекунад I j <_lS
»ljj.5 4_S f jA-_< . ‘don’t tell my father, or (else)
he’ll yell at you’ (i.e., ‘because if you do...’).
4.40 Clauses of Result and Purpose
The complementizer ки <£ may introduce both clauses of Result (also
called consecutive clauses) and of Purpose (also called final clauses).
Verbs announcing the achievement of results take the Indicative, while
those expressing a purpose (a potential result) take the Present
Subjunctive: дар вакт-и поин омадан-аш Шохкосим аз миён-ам
дошт, ки по-яш ба замин бархурда лат на-ёфт
< - J	j ' А 3 1  1'~1	<<" * >".1л f-lL- 1 л jl ,i < 11 0 6 I— J > J—of
.-.-al ‘while coming down, Shohqosim held me round the waist, so
that he did not stumble’ (Result; ‘so as not to stumble’ would be ...ки
по-яш...лат на-ёбад	eJ ...(jL-jL 4_$...); омадам, ки y-po
бинам л   I jjl <l£ ‘I came to see him’ (Purpose).
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Result and Purpose clauses introduced by ki are frequently preceded
by an adverb of manner or degree: аз таре чунон дод зад, ки хама
ба суй-и у давидем ^л_>^л jl	jLlo. Jl
‘he yelled so [loudly] from fear that we all ran up to him’ (Result);
Амон... маро чунон фушурд, ки кариб миён-ам шиканад
лjl-Ц. Ij-o ... jL>l‘Amon hugged me so
tightly that my waist nearly broke’ (Result; but Subjunctive because
the action was ‘nearly’, not actually, accomplished); Дарья ба у
тарз-е нигох кард, ки ба шунидан-и хикоя-аш тайёр будан-и
худ-ро фахмонд jj—«---------------£ <jj—£ oLsLs jL «ц^л
a1La о. a I jjjjLJ= (ji.I ‘Darya looked at him in a way
that conveyed her readiness to hear his story’ (Result—technically,
because fahmond is Indicative; the success of the signal, however, is
incidental to the intention behind it); цанг чандон кун, ки ба сулх
цой бошад л-iL	pb'i-j. ‘make war (only)
to the degree that there may be room for peace’ (Purpose). Similar
clauses where focus is on the manner of action are illustrated in 4.32.
Purpose: All the constructions illustrated below support Purpose
complements with the same or a different subject from the main clause.
If the context is clear, a purpose clause may by postposed without
fa’or any other conjunction (esp. in colloquial usage): пеш-и мехмон-ат
рав, аз ту хафа нашавад л< аА jl <jj ц - Jt,   ‘go
over to your guest, so he won’t be offended’; ба Фазилат-хола
хам... барг зада оварда дихед, кирмакхо-яш аз гушнагй на-
муранд 1л<S а<л >йLA. «** J * < a a <t_i
aSj_<a < j .7. jl ‘cut and fetch some (mulberry] leaves for Fazilat-
khola as well, so that her [silk]worms don’t starve to death’.
Complementizer ki may be supplemented by mabodo ‘lest; so that...
not’, before a negated Subjunctive, for the meaning ‘in case..., to
stop...’: Шодй... дар канор-и ба киштзор пайваста-и царй мегашт,
ки мабодо бузхо ба кишт-и мардум надароянд _,л ...^л!___________А
^Л^-а i" 1 AS-i LbJj LI 1 а <" । Л-S a Й " ...j \ \ JIJ ~	। jl
л-'i-jT_)ЛА ‘Shodi... patrolled the ditch that ran alongside the fields, in
case the goats should get in among the people’s plants’.
A more explicit and versatile purpose clause may be introduced by
(az) baroi on ki ‘for the purpose of -ing’ (see 4.15, esp. under Turkic-
SYNTAX
391
style: Complement nominalization): ин хона аз барои он буд, ки
мехмонон-и аз дур омада бемалол хобида раванд jl j^l
jl jLjl n () a 4-^ ‘ ^3—1 (jT	‘this
room was for the convenience of overnight guests from distant parts’
(‘was for that [purpose], that guests coming from afar might sleep
without trouble’); ин-ро хукумат барои он дорй карда-аст, ки
нишон дихад: дар ин до... хама-и шумо якранг ва баробар
Хастед jj ллз JLj.<l£	СЛ сЛ-Н	IjAJ
' . a j-ilj-i j i-S-LI n & I ‘.J ‘the government has
[presumably] instituted this in order to show that here everyone is
equal’ (‘...to show: “...you are all of one kind and equal”; cf. 4.18,
Pseudo-direct speech).
This conjunction may also introduce an initial Purpose clause: барои
он ки кор-и хуб-е ёбй, бояд нагз хонй	jl_£ <lSsT c$Ij->
^1 j—i-l	‘in order to get a good job, you must study
hard’.
Nominalization: Quite complex purpose complements are often ex-
pressed as NPs after the preposition baroi'. барои {бе гуфтугу ва бе
чанг-у хунрезй таслим кунондан-и душманхо-и хукумат-и
шурой} як мурочиатнома аз ном-и модар-и амир тартиб
додем	f-J ц.'.	j	j з-S', a ^l_>_.
j.. al jjLaa jl 4—»I	« 7 । j л 1 . (cf”11J3-*•" ’-° сЛ (| 1 n 1
‘in order {to persuade the enemies of the Soviet govern-
ment to surrender without argument or fighting and bloodshed}, we
arranged a letter of appeal from the emir’s mother’. Similarly, a stated
purpose may be nominalized: мадсади ман адреси хонаи К,орй
ишкамба-ро ёфтан буд I j<i ; Л Л1 LlLk jjl j .-о a «
jj-. j- al_.‘my intention was to find out the address of Qori Ishkam-
ba’s house’.
Note that the Definite direct object NPs of the infinitival purpose
phrases in these sentences are construed differently: in the first, the
object of taslim kunondan ‘to persuade to surrender’ is postposed,
without-ro; in the second, that of yoftan is preposed, with -ro.
Conversely, the VP of the main clause may be nominalized as the
subject (infinitive) NP of the purpose clause: {дар вацт-и чинак-и
пахта туй кардан-и бойхо} на аз барои ин аст, ки шикам-и
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ту ва дигарон-ро сер кунад, балки барои ин аст, ки мехнат-
кашон-ро аз кор моноида ба чинак-и пахта халал расонад jj]
pS i~i <<.~ 1 nil (3-^' j' 1 (Lb^L	d ” __I  *s *> ,- Ja j
IJ J I « u S illUl *> л <LS <<-Z.i nil 3-J (_^ljj < SI J < j21S j J in I j	J
j JIA <i Л k_> . S \ j ? । о jJiLLe jL£ j I ‘the reason that the rich
give feasts during cotton-picking is not in order to fill your belly and
that of others, but in order to stop the field workers from working and
ruin the cotton harvest’ (lit. ‘the feast-making of the rich...’).
4.41 Postposed Clauses with to
Preposed clauses introduced by то Lin four distinct senses are illustrated
in 4.29. Below are exemplified the two functions in which this con-
junction, or extensions of it, appear in a postposed subordinate clause.
‘Until’: To express the culmination of a process, or the result of a
prolonged or repeated action, то (он ки) ) Li is used with a
postposed clause and a verb in a punctual Indicative tense: рафт-у
рафт то ба дангал-е расид д j w 1 L j j cJj ‘on
(and on) he went until he reached a forest’; мардак даст-у по закон
бо дод-у фарьёд-и дигар-харош месухт, то он ки кам-кам
фаръёд-аш-ро хам аланга-и оташ фуру бурд Ь j ...л SJj—o
<lSif L и" ।  1-14—° (Julj J jl С 3 jlj I 1 (jLj
аj-» jj-j (_Д41	I I j jji.jL_i_>_i ‘arms and legs flailing, the poor
fellow burned with heart-rending screams, until gradually the flames
swallowed up his cries’ (Durative Past in the main clause, but Simple
Past in the temporal clause).
Purpose clauses: In a more literary register, the conjunction то (ки)
(<^)L ‘so that’ with a following Present Subjunctive may introduce
more explicit purpose clauses than ki: модар калон ба назд-и онхо
даромад, то хабар дихад, ки даста ба деха наздик шуд _,al________о
а Л । S ijJ-j i 4—~ 4ij <__S <лаj j j i L  j—oTjJ 1 g J i jjiLS
‘grandmother came over to tell them that the procession was close to
the village’; ба тараф-и у давид, то ки бо дуст-и дирина-и худ
мулокот-и гарм-у чушон кунад L Ls jl <_s
j'.S jLiз-а. j j-2 oiLjyLc ajA.	‘he ran toward him, so as to
enjoy a warm reunion with his old friend’; намад-ро... чаппа карда
SYNTAX
393
пах,н кард, то ки догхо-яш ба назар на-намояд <<—...Ij.u
j-iLa. '1'j j U	<_£ L < jj_S Jh-. a jj-S ‘he turned the felt rug
over and spread it out, so that its blemishes would not show’.
If a purpose clause is embedded in a longer sentence, its verb may
be converted from a finite Subjunctive into a serial verb coordinate in
the form of Past Participle I: бояд... пеш аз баромадани офтоб
дар дарвозаи имоми шахри Бухоро хозир мешудем, то ки он
цо аз хамаи равандагон пештар хархо-и хуб-и киро-ашон
арзонро ба даст дароварда, пеш аз гарм шудани руз ба Вобканд
расида гирем j	ojljjj jj ^LUiT	Jl  juL
j " —i—i	4 n й jl I ~i. iT Lj i.Ulji^j—q	I jL \ i
Jjj da-“‘f j*	ch-uuJ-i Ijjljjl jLillj-S i-jj-i.
& л  _, >'.< J j «u ‘we would have to be present before sunrise
at the Imom Gate of Bukhara city, in order to secure all the good asses
that could be hired cheap, before everyone else, and manage to reach
Vobkand before the heat of day set in’.
Other variants occasionally encountered are то ин ки < _J Is
and, mainly in poetry, ки то Li <t£.
Note that to L is not used in Tajik to compare clauses or phrases,
as it is in SP (e.g., bistar mixabad ta kar mikonad ‘he sleeps more than
he works’); this is accomplished by means of the preposition аз JI or
the circumpositional phrase аз - дида Jl with an Infinitive
phrase: у аз кор кардан дида бештар хоб меравад Э1—S jl jl
^jlj Л, ; txij (jjj-S (2.42); or, in more literary style,
one of the prepositional phrases нисбат ба <t_i <xj-j—I назар ба
<u j_kJi ‘in relation to, in comparison with’, and one or more Infinitive
phrases: назар ба ТВ тамошо кардан китоб хондан-ро бештар
дуст медорам j~ * j > Ij Jjjl^>. i_uLs£ LiLo-S .j <i_i_>JL-j
j» jla^f-o jj ‘rather than watch TV I prefer to read a book’.
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RELATIVE CLAUSES
4.42 Relative Clauses (1): Synopsis
There are no dedicated Relative pronouns in Tajik Persian. The relative
clause is joined onto the NP in the main clause to which it relates by
means of the complementizer ki: бой, ки... ба болишт такья карда
ёзида буд, ба Набй Полвон, ки дар ру ба руи у... менишаст,
нигох, кард	j * * <	4 SLl <*• < Л. 11 * 4__» ... 4 £
jj_£ £>LSL «.z>»... jl cSJj-t J J oJ <t—< JIj-lL> ‘the rich man,
who was lying sprawled against a pillow, looked at Nabi Polvon, who
was sitting facing him’. The relative clause is usually set off by paired
commas. If the head noun of the relative clause (the one preceding ki)
becomes an object or part of a possessive or prepositional phrase in
the relative clause, then he, she, or it (the antecedent, from the perspective
of the relative clause) is copied or “referred back to” if necessary by
an anaphoric pronoun in the appropriate grammatical construct (usually
a 3rd person Personal pronoun or the demonstrative он ji): як одам,
{ки у-ро на-мешинохтам,} дар хона даромад l4Jl <_£} Xj
<lsLA jj -kL'i	person {whom I didn’t know} came
into the room’ (lit., ‘a person that I didn’t know him/ her...’.
A relative clause is usually embedded, as here, in the main clause,
i.e., after the antecedent is mentioned but before the final VP; however,
a shorter main clause may be completed before the relative clause,
which is then postposed: як одам даромад, ки у-ро на-мешинохтам
I jjl <l^ . xof jj	u£_j‘a person came in whom I didn’t
know’.
As in other types of subordinate clause, the verb of a relative
clause is in the Indicative mood when it denotes an actual event, and
in the (Present) Subjunctive when indicating a speculation, expectation,
or other unrealized action; this is particularly frequent after Selective,
Non-referential, and Indefinite heads (4.46).
Within this basic pattern, the most important variation is a conceptual
and structural distinction between Non-restrictive and Restrictive rela-
tive clauses, in principle quite similar to that of English. A Non-restrictive
(also called descriptive, or non-defining) relative clause is a descriptive
SYNTAX
395
unit in apposition to the head, often to the extent of being an incidental
parenthesis not essential to the information carried in the main clause.
In English it is usually set off from the main clause by a pause in
speech and paired commas in writing: Our school, which is near here,
is very nice. These features are generally paralleled in Tajik: мактаби
мо, ки ба ин 4,0 наздик аст, бисер нагз аст	<L> ._,~X a
 “ I . 1 j-i-j jl i" >	.-S—
On the other hand, a Restrictive (also called defining) relative clause
is essential to the identification of the head, and contrasts this, implicitly
or explicitly, with members of the same class not so characterized: The
school where we study is very nice мактаб-е ки мо дар он мехонем
бесёр нагз аст JAS jl ।...  IjT jjU'd o । ~iS л
(‘...that we study in it...’)—i.e., not some other school; The school
where we study is as narrowly defined a unit as Our school in the
preceding sentence. The Tajik Restrictive relative clause is linked to
the head by means of an (unstressed) enclitic -e and cannot
normally be separated from the head, its antecedent. It is, moreover,
pronounced as a prosodic unit with its antecedent (like its counterpart
in English); and in particular the head and relative connector, whether
it is the school where we... or maktab-e ki mo..., are enunciated as a
unit.
The same example includes a typical anaphor, here a prepositional
phrase dar on ‘in it’; this may be extended to дар он до I—j4
matching the translation ‘[in] where’. Informal English in Restrictive
relative sentences is closer to Tajik usage than formal English: The
school that we go to! The school we study at employ a similar invariable
complementizer and anaphoric prepositional phrases (though with the
pronoun it deleted, which cannot be done in Tajik).
It will be noticed that the Relative enclitic -e is formally identical
with the Indefinite/ Specific enclitic -e, as in (як) мактаб-е (dLJ)
a ‘a school’ (2.7-8). This kind of (Specific) NP can in fact be the
head of a Relative clause (see Semi-restrictive relative, 4.44), but should
not be confused with the Definite NP plus -e that is the usual head of a
standard Restrictive Relative clause.4
4 Some scholars have argued that they are a single morpheme: see Jahani 2000, p.
34.
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Initially confusing is the Tajik requirement (at least in Cyrillic of
MLT), that any subordinate clause be set off from the main clause by
means of commas; this applies not only to Non-restrictive relative
clauses, where the practice (as it does in English) would correspond to
and cue the enunciation, but also to Restrictive relatives, where it often
runs counter to the rhythms of speech. The last sentence example
should correctly be written as: мактаб-е, ки мо дар он мехонем,
бесёр нагз аст. This rule (which is copied from Russian usage; see
also 1.16) is not always followed, and even less strictly in Perso-Arabic
script. In most cases it does not in itself cause confusion (in the example,
the reading 'a school, where we [happen to] study, is very nice’ is
nonsensical, and ‘the school, where we [happen to] study, is very nice’
is at the least humorously pleonastic). However, a Relative head NP
such as табассуми латиф-е, ки <u_£ « _ L I is at first
glance ambiguous between ‘the sweet smile that...’ and ‘a sweet smile,
which...’. This mechanical punctuation will be reproduced here in
examples where it occurs in the original Cyrillic, but dispensed with in
some Perso-Arabic versions where it appears to be unnecessary.
The two types, Non-restrictive and Restrictive, are always distinct
when the head is plainly Definite: in odam, ki rafiqi man ast,.. ‘this
man, who [incidentally] is my friend,...; in adame[,] ki ham aknun
daromad ‘this/ the man who just came in’. A proper noun or equivalent
(say, a title) is categorically Definite, and invariably heads a Non-
restrictive relative clause (as in the first example: Nabi Polvon, ki... ‘N.
P., who [as it happens]...’). When an antecedent is plainly Indefinite,
its lack of definition makes automatically for a Non-restrictive relative:
Someone or other, whom 1 didn’t see,... ягон одам(-е), ки уро
надидам,.......I jjl	A Specific antecedent
however, which by definition is already known to the speaker and
reserves the potential of being further defined for the listener (2.8),
may lean toward either one. A (certain) sweet smile, which faded abruptly
(Non-restrictive?) and A sweet smile that I recognized (Restrictive)
could begin in the same way in written Tajik: табассуми латиф-е,
ки.....a j.In I p,„ j~; so that even when the enclitic has been
identified as Specific, and translated as the indefinite article, some
ambiguity may remain. The same is true of such sentences in English,
SYNTAX
397
as the imprecision in comma punctuation makes plain. More will be
said on these “Semi-Restrictive” relative clauses with Specific NP heads
in 4.44; their enclitic -e, meaning ‘a(n)’, will be written in Cyrillic
without a morpheme boundary hyphen, to distinguish it from the Relative
enclitic that attaches to a Definite head noun, ‘the — that...’ (in the
original orthography they are, of course, written as one word with the
head, without distinction).
In addition to the contextual meaning of the sentence, a syntactic
rule often distinguishes Restrictive from Non-restrictive relatives. A
Restrictive (Definite) antecedent may not usually be separated from its
connective -e ki (for qualifications, see 4.44), i.e., the clause is embedded,
followed by the VP of the main clause. Consider the following two
sentences:
(1)	дар руз-е, {ки дар шаби гузаштаи он куьлтиватор гум
шудааст,} дуй вайрон шудааст jT Ъ j .-.-Л. jj <i_£]
jljjj {""• ",l	J> J *on ^e day {after
the night that the cultivator went missing}, the channel stopped working’.
Despite the first comma, the sentence head and its connectives -e and
ki are juxtaposed in what reads naturally as a prosodic unit, giving the
Restrictive sense (lit.) ‘on the day that on the night previous to it...’;
the relative clause is embedded.
(2)	дар хамин вакт чашми у ба пирамарде афтод, {ки ба
тарафи вай меомад}	ц <_> jl •> Лj а ь jj
{ajI	j-L-j ‘at this same moment his eye fell upon an old
man[?,] who was coming toward him’. The English translation seems
acceptable either with or without a comma; however, since (a) the VP,
meaning ‘happened to see [for the first time)’ identifies the antecedent
of the Relative clause as new information, i.e., Specific, not Definite,
and (b) the Tajik relative clause is separated from its antecedent and
postposed, this is technically a Non-restrictive relative sentence. The
clause is probably not, however, parenthetical and incidental to the
course of the narrative. This type of Semi-Restrictive relative clause
with a Specific NP as head is evidently intermediate in status between
Restrictive and Non-restrictive.
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4.43 Relative Clauses (2): Nan-Restrictive
The head NP of a Tajik Non-restrictive relative clause may be either
Definite or Specific (but non-defined; see 2.7). A Definite noun is
often preceded by a Demonstrative adjective (ин ‘this’ or, more
commonly, он ‘that’): он хона, ки гуё барои азоби бачагон
сохта бошанд,... ч <1 ... jl<?	L<<CiLi. jl
...< jjjiL ‘that house, which might have been built in order to torture
children,...’ (Past Subjunctive, since the proposition is fanciful; see
Speculative simile, 4.32, and cf. this similar relative clause with giiyo,
where the more realistic speculation is put into the Indicative: боз як
хоначае буд, ки гуё барои ошхона... сохта шуда буд <  JL
j6«скЛЬх, ...<lsI Ч а.Т Ljj-S <lS ^1 ч a.'>L4 ‘there was
another small room, which had perhaps been built as a kitchen’).
If the head is a Specific NP, it may be preceded by the Quasi-article
як i-S-j or take the Specific enclitic -e як табассуми латиф,
бачагона ва маъсумона дар руи у шукуфт, ки уро боз хам
зеботар гардонд ‘a gentle, childlike, innocent smile blossomed on
her face, which made her even more beautiful’; худ-po дар самолёт-е
хис кардам, ки ба чукурии-и хаво ба суръат галтида меравад
a A j In I г .2 tx j j	1	0“^ u-1 L-bJ I—« m jJ IjJj-a.
at.u'dc\ ‘I felt that I was in an airplane (which was) plunging
out of the sky at high speed’. In both these sentences the Relative
clause is postposed, in part because it is longer than the VP of the
main clause (especially so in the second sentence); to embed it would
be to unbalance the sentence: *xudro dar samolyot-e {ki ba cuqurii
havo galtida meravad} his kardam.
Another reason for the postposing of this and other Non-restrictive
relative clauses is the often looser and more polyvalent nature of the
“relative” relation. A variant interpretation of this same sentence might
be ‘...an airplane plunging...’ or ‘an airplane as it plunged...’, i.e., as
the equivalent of a Concomitant complement (4.45, and cf. 4.16). Other
apparent Non-restrictive relative clauses may translate equally well as
temporal or circumstantial clauses: духтарча, ки дар гирд-у пеш-и
худ модар-и худ-ро наёфт, ба гирья даромад jj .ч-a-j ~ Ча
s—al jj <t_м-msI______1Д Ijjl________о jj—a. q7i i_i j ‘the little girl,
SYNTAX
399
who did not find her mother anywhere near, began to cry’ (or ‘...when/
since she did not find...’ (4.31).
The antecedent may be any type of NP, such as a Partitive phrase:
як-е аз чавонон, ки аз хама поёнтар нишаста буд, аз чояш
цаста хест jl .jjj <i т ... ЛЛ jjjbL jl <t_S <jL>l jjj. jl
<1 т . (ji-iLa. ‘one of the youths, who was sitting right at the
back, jumped up from his seat’; or an extended Infinitive phrase: ин
гуна бе-асос аз марг тарсида гурехтан, ки рузе чанд бор
вокеъ мешавад,... .jT \ _ij-S j3 ^j-o jl	^1
£-3lj jl_> <	jj <i—S ‘this sort of groundless fear of
and flight from death, which happens several times a day,...’.
The antecedent may be any nominal constituent, such as the Direct
or Indirect or Prepositional object, of the main clause, and become a
different one in the Relative clause: якчанд хонахои сиёхро катор
барпо карда буданд, ки дар пеши онхо бачагони хурдсол...
ресмон мериштанд ьаj_£ L>jj jLL.3 IjJ . ...сг1-А<С11_А a-ka.<-£j
Д 1" i^ij^y—a (j I a < <1 1 j ...(J I	U ? I 0“ ..'.J
few black huts had been set up in a row, in front of which some young
children... were spinning thread’ (‘they had set up...’; object of the
main clause, prepositional object in the subordinate); ба ин кас
рахмат гуй, ки ба ту дар вакт-аш ёрмандии калон расондааст
ojjl—euj	(j* ~ aj jj j-l->	1j 0^ 0-?^
...I ‘thank this gentleman, who has rendered you great and timely
assistance’ (Indirect object of the main clause, subject of the subordinate;
interpretable also as an explanatory clause, ‘because/ since he...’ ).
The whole of the main clause, or a large part of it, may be the
antecedent (a sentential relative clause): як вакт ман ин-ро аз гарк
шудан-и дар об халос карда будам, ки хеле хикоят-и ачиб
аст <u£ jj	j' '
r	I  < ‘once I saved him from drowning, which
is a very strange tale’.
Anaphoric pronouns and NPs: The basic principles of the use of
anaphoric elements is the same for both Non-restrictive and Restrictive
clauses; the following illustrations are therefore complemented and
supplemented in 4.44.
By the nature of a Relative construction, the antecedent in the
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main clause is always referred to in some capacity in the relative
clause; if that capacity is the default status of Subject (as in all the
preceding examples but one), then, as in any other same-subject
subordinate clause, it is not usually repeated or copied pronominally.
However, an antecedent may be copied as Subject of the subordinate
clause (for the sake of clarity or for rhetorical effect), in one of four
ways: repetition of the same (or a shortened form of the same) NP; a
synonymous NP; a personal pronoun for humans and higher animals
(y jl, вай Lgj, ohxo I------$-3i); or a pronoun for lower animals and
inanimates (он/ онко L_^_1T\ <jT), e.g.: баъд ондо ба бозори китоб
рафтанд, ки он назди хонаи маданияти шахр кушода шуд
йз! мХ j д Л 1.1-1 л-а 4-jlA. Jj-j	<л*iT aj । jl j(_1 <_i l^-jf jjui
j—‘next they went to the book market, which [had] opened next to
the municipal House of Culture’ (‘that it was opened...’).
When the antecedent is anything other than the subject of the
subordinate (relative) clause, an anaphoric pronoun or NP is normally
necessary to mark its grammatical relation to the NP which is the
focus of the relative clause. Thus a possessive or partitive relation (‘of
which’) construes the focussed NP as the head of a nominal izofat with
the anaphoric element: як дикояти аввалинам дар Тошкент чоп
шуда буд, ки мусаввадаи он х,ам дар дастам намондааст JLi
jj (j | ajj	n 4_S <<з-1 6j_Л <_jLa. .г., 'X ioLi jj p.~i Jjl cLujlia.
1-ц^1 6j2iL<i< ji'i one of my very first stories, of which I no longer
possess the rough draft, was printed in Tashkent’ (‘that the rough draft
of it...’).
A prepositional relationship (‘to which, for which’, etc.) requires a
pronominal or NP copy as the object of the preposition: у дар фикри
чй гуна пойдор кардани мансаби кушбегигй буд, ки дувоздах,
руз пеш аз он ба он мансаб расида буд <usj $ 4_а. jl
сД j' о"1-1-1 jjj	,JJ-? о	J—8 '"IUI "> Л JJj-XjIxjLj
jj_j	,n‘i c jl ‘he was thinking how to make permanent (his
tenure of) the office of Qushbegi [Chief Minister], to which office he
had succeeded twelve days ago’; рузе... сух,бати дурудароз рост
омад, ки бо он мусох;иба хак,ик,ати ахволи он оиларо тамоман
фадмидам jjf Li 4—£ • j—J о Jj jljJ j jjJ	
л j a fl a (Llls I j 4_LLc jT Jl jo-l oi j a4 i-J л ‘one day... we
SYNTAX
401
managed to have an extensive conversation, through which interview I
came fully to understand that family’s situation’ (in both examples,
anaphoric synonyms); cf. xonaho-i siyohro... ki darpesi onho... ‘...huts...
in front of which...’ (anaphoric pronoun), under the preceding subhead.
If the antecedent becomes the direct object of the relative clause,
the anaphoric element (Definite by virtue of previous reference) takes
the enclitic -ro (2.17): лампаи овеза, ки онро худи Алй соз
карда,	Ij pf «sjujl %________i—^Jthe hanging
lamp, which Ali had trimmed himself,...’; як одам, ки y-po на-
мешинохтам, дар хона даромад jj	<l£
j—oljj «CiLi. ‘a person (whom) I didn’t know came into the room’ (‘a
person that I didn’t know him/ her...’). As with an antecedent as subject,
the anaphoric object copy may often be omitted, provided the meaning
remains clear: ин китоб, ки (онро) аз Манижа гирифтам, бисёр
галатй аст г j I а. j 'a*j	~ jl	 <1 “< ^1
iTj-uul ‘this book, which I got from Manizha, is very interesting’.
Sometimes the anaphoric NP includes the antecedent in substantively
new material, e.g., as a partitive or comparative phrase. In this case, a
subject or object anaphor may not be omitted: дар гуна водеадо руй
дода буд, ки ман дамаи ондоро ба шумо накд карда намешинам
1 । П Ц| J I jLfl-d ‘Сл Й й“°	6jlj	jA
Л. all sorts of events took place, all of which I’m not going to
tell you at length’ (anaphoric pronoun object; for the progressive Con-
junct construction, see 3.20 and 5.20, nisastan)', тагои-ям... ба бозор
баромаду домадонча-и фанери-яшро, ки ин гуна домадончадоро
одатан коргарони одан гирифта мегарданд, пур карда баромад
й-d 4-^ < I j (jli I J—Va. 1Ь^—ой. J J—J_1 jl jL> 4_J ... I L A In
LjjLc IJ 4-a.'i b <L-0 La. <Lj
j____Л‘my uncle... went off to the market with his goods packed
inside his plywood suitcase, the kind of suitcase[s] that ironworkers
usually carry’ (‘that this kind of suitcases...’; a modified NP object
copy).
There are several other possible formulations of the Non-restrictive
relative clause, but these are essentially the same as those available to
the Restrictive relative, and are covered in 4.44.
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4.44 Relative Clauses (3): Restrictive
The head of a Restrictive relative clause is linked to ki by the enclitic
-e in a prosodic unit which (despite any intervening comma) may not
usually be interrupted by another sentence constituent (see below):
яке аз он даюсхо-е, ки ман гуфтам, ту хастй jl
... д> j-S j_a i	‘one of those cowards (that) 1
mentioned is you’ (lit. ‘you are’). The head is by virtue of the defining
relative clause a Specific or Definite NP, and thus requires the enclitic
-po I j- if it is the direct object of the main clause; this -ro is placed
immediately after the connective -e: акнун вай метавонад он
назариядо-е-ро, ки хонда аз худ кардааст, дар амал татбик,
намояд jj-A jl ojJilj-S. <£ I j (	jSIj-Sjj-AI
3 j j kT J-o-c jj <cj-mjI 6Jj^‘now he can put into practice those
theories that he has mastered’ (Definite NP); рубоихо-е-ро, ки
масъалаи муносибатро ба ёр дахл мекунанд, чудо кардани мо
зарур . U.'.S JAj jL <!_> Ijc-.j Ц1(2ц %Г1Ц, л <l£ <1 j^La^Lj
Lo j-S Ij^j. ‘we must separate the ruba’is which include the
question of the relationship with the friend’ (‘...our separating the
ruba’is which... [is] necessary’; the relative clause is typically Persian
in style, whereas the main clause is structurally Turkic; cf. 4.20, under
Adjectives and adverbs).
The VP of the main clause may be inserted between a Definite
head (plus -e and possible -ro) and its relative clause beginning with
ki, if that VP is a copula or a similarly short and unobtrusive form: ин
хамон об-е-ст, ки аз бахр ба воситаи насосдо кашида мешавад
и,ь i > La lint 4 In < <il^_i	"к. > j I
‘this is the same water that is pumped from the lake’; ин муаммо-ест,
ки халл-аш шаб-у руз моро азоб медихад <l£ c-i-uJ (,»_о <jjl
лал  « t—J j_c I jL_o jjj j . A U ‘this is the puzzle the solution
of which tantalizes us day and night’ (or ‘[trying to solve] this puzzle
is what torments us...’); Усмон аз кабили он падарон мебошад,
ки дар роди тарбия-ву таълими фарзандонаш ба хама гуна
душворй тоб меоваранд <l£ <	J.1.» » j' о* »f
-jLj csj'j—<—°—H uA-dj-j jj—« f 1	3 4—bl J Jj
‘Usmon is one of those fathers who for the sake of their
SYNTAX
403
children’s education will put up with any sort of hardship’ (the singular
pronominal enclitic -as in the relative clause—despite the plural
verb—has presumably been attracted by the singular subject of the
main clause).
Note that in the preceding example, the relative enclitic -e is omitted.
This is a tendency of antecedents that are, or are qualified by, qualifiers
or quantifiers with meanings such as ‘the kind of — who.../to...’, ‘the
only — who.../to...’: вале хамин се нафар аз он кабил буданд,
ки... зинда ва саломат баргаштанд jT j । J—4—— сН—и-l J
ulT. cu-oyL-j j ... <l£ < jjjJ j ? a ‘but these three people
are among those... who returned alive and well’; дар ин до танхо он
водеахоро ед мекунам, ки дар он асар баён наёфтаанд jj
jjl <а_а(_х. jL±l> _>jl jJ 4^	jL> I jUb 4ju2I j T । д * " I -> ' <1
‘here I shall mention only those events which were not described in
that work’. When qualifying a noun, these terms do not take izofat
([az] on qabil odam ‘that type/ category of person’; see 2.19).
This is not, however, a binding rule; cf. ягона маслихат ва
насихат-е, ки ба ту медихам, ин аст, ки харгиз ноумед мабош
Lj	4^ tiZ i u<iI (2?—11	i 4^ > -ъ—j , - . I . n 4 \ I i
(jiL-a ‘the sole advice and counsel that I give you is this: “never
despair’”. Note also the two conjoined head nouns, but a single relative
enclitic.
Semi-restrictive relatives. Where the head is a Specific NP, the
Restrictive force of the relative clause is not as binding (see 4.42); -ro
still attaches when necessary to the enclitic -e (which is in this case the
Specific enclitic ‘a(n)’, not the Relative link), but this may be followed
by the VP of the main clause even if it is a Complex or Composite
verb, and the Relative clause, beginning with ki, may be postposed:
ман ба Шумо барои хондан як китобе-ро тавсия мекунам, ки
худам хондам 4 ?	~ S Х_> <jjjl^1 j_i I л Л. j j_o
j»jjl jA	'X ( ‘I’ll recommend a book to you (to read) that
I [have] read myself’ (not ‘that book, and only that, which...’ but ‘one
of a number of books that...’).
It is not obligatory to postpose the relative clause; in the following
example it is embedded, probably to avoid a dysphonic clash with the
following ki clause: Махмуд ба давоне ки дар наздикй кор ме-
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CHAPTER FOUR
кард, фармон дод, ки... jLS	jj <_i ^1 j < 'j " a
...<_£ < jlj jLaj-j jj_£ ‘Mahmud ordered a youth who worked nearby
to...’.
Further examples: вай корх;ое мекунад, ки х,еч як бегидон
накардааст	jLa.	<l£ « ^Ubjli (_$j
‘he does things that no Begi Jan5 (ever) did’; ин х,олати бой ба зове
монандй дошт, ки як чашмашро ба устухон... дузад, чашми
дигарашро аз сайёд намеканад ' ’!______о	.-.II
J I I j	7 < J j JJ    J । J 4 "i ...L I j a7. л .7.	4-S <CU-uil j
jl _i .^‘this attitude of the rich man’s resembled (that of) a
crow which has one eye fixed on the bone and cannot tear the other
one away from the hunter’ (Subjunctive because speculative; cf. also
Non-referential relatives, 4.45).
Anaphoric pronouns and NPs. Note that in a number of the preceding
examples, the antecedent is also the direct object of the relative clause
(the agent has mastered the theories in question; gives advice; has read
the book he recommends; has done things). In none of them is there an
anaphoric object pronoun, since the structure of the clause with its
transitive verb makes the meaning sufficiently clear without one. An
expected anaphoric prepositional phrase (commonly of place or time)
may also be omitted: дар хона-е, ки мо [дар он (до)] кор мекардем,
х;еч кас бе идозат намебаромад [(Uj.)<jT jj] l_« <_£ <cSl<LlUi. jj
j—af	c^jL-a.1 g-.i-a	‘in Ле shop where
we worked, nobody went out without permission’ (cf. colloq. Eng.
‘the place that we worked’); ин сузани-ро дар х;амон сол-е, ки
[дар он] Ленин аз дуньё дашм пушид cap карда будам
л .* р1»7 Чй-1 j' й-Ч-l [o’ jj] *(^-4-“ dl-a-A jj 'j
&jj_S j uu ‘I started this piece of needlepoint in the same year
(that) Lenin passed away’. Even when the anaphora would be part of
an iwfat phrase it is sometimes omitted: x;ap х;арф-е-ро, ки у давоб[и
онро] дода наметавонист, падарам аз ман пурсид I j
л ।	j' '-|ц|	j ['ju^ ] <—dj—jl •i-i‘every
ques- tion that he could not answer, my father asked me’.
When the noun or pronoun focus of the sentence is stated once as
the direct object, it is sometimes omitted later (by attraction) even
5 A shrewd and powerful Uzbek ruler of the late 18th century.
SYNTAX
405
where it is not anaphoric, but an independent object in the clause: ypo
ман дар вадте дидам, ки ба госпидаль мебурданд jj j-o Ijjl
xijj-j 1_гл JLv j _i 4_i <£	u-j-2J 4 saw h*m (at a t*me) when
they were taking [him] to the hospital’ (yaqt ‘time’ is the antecedent,
not м-го; cf. 4.27).
If the antecedent becomes part of an expanded NP with new
information, the anaphor cannot be omitted: дар тани ман чунон
либосдо-е буд, ки ман пеш аз он монанди ондоро напушида
будам J-UiL-a jjl jl	jLLa. J-o <>5 jj
j ,7,l4L^jiT ‘I was wearing clothes the like of which I had
never worn before’ (‘such clothes that the like of them...’). Anaphoric
copies of more complex or less predictable prepositional relations are
not omitted: руйхати фандо-е, ки аз руи ондо имтидон гирифта
мешавад, бетагир мемонад I $ 'J jl .1 ь L <
j _i j»"> jjI -> т n I ‘the list of subjects on
which the examinations are given remains unchanged’. In possessive
or partitive anaphors such as these, either independent pronouns (as
above) or pronominal clitics may modify the inserted nominal: Одина
дар завод-е, ки шумо дар фасли боло дарун ва берун-ашро
------------------------------------------------------j------------
тамошо кардед, кор мекунад jj I п j, <£ <cSjjl j jJ «ClujI
jLS LiLaS jj-xj j ^L> ‘Odina works in
the plant which you have seen, inside and outside, in the paragraph
above’ (‘that the inside and outside of it...’).
4.45 Relative Clauses (4): Anomalies
The following examples represent unusual forms of the types described
above, and in the last case a deceptively similar construction which is
not actually a relative sentence.
Topicalization: Relative clauses occur in which the usually direct
relation between the head and the antecedent is dislocated or elided.
This may happen through topicalization (see 4.1(8)): лампаи
овеза, ки онро худи Алй соз карда, шишаашро дар шаб...
тоза карда мемонд jUx. j1^	<l£ «sJjjT л I
&jj_S & jLS	<7. ljpi.14 .* i Л. ‘Every night Ali
used to clean the glass of the hanging lamp, which he trimmed
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CHAPTER FOUR
himself’ (‘the hanging lamp.... he cleaned its glass’). The relative
clause refers as expected to the lamp, but the object of the main
clause is actually its glass (the head of the underlying izofat NP
sisa-i lampa-i ovezaf, to simplify the syntax, the immediate object
NP, lampa-i oveza, remains as the Topic of the main clause,
where it is related to sisa by means of an anaphoric pronominal
enclitic. Similarly, in a Restrictive relative clause: муборизае,
ки ман дар давом-и се сол бурда омадам, натида-аш
фак,ат хдмин руз маълум шуд 4-lu j»ljj jj j-o <c5l 6jjL-i_o
j *i	—a jjj (j-?—°-® < i (jii I *1 •> । ~ 'i oT JL-uj ‘the
result of the struggle (that) I have waged for three years became
known only today’ (‘the struggle that.., its result...’).
The opposite stratagem, a refusal to topicalize, may obscure the
subject in one of the clauses (especially if, as here, there are two
subordinate clauses): бо дидани нони гарм оби дахрни Шокир,
{ки хеле гурусна буд,} чакида омада бошад х;ам, ба нон
даст дароз накард <-£} < jLbj <__>Т j*L>
J 1 jljJ 1 ~ ' 1 J1'01'^ 1	d—UlLl	।	\  “ j at
the sight of the warm bread Shokir’s mouth began to water, since
he was very hungry, yet he did not reach for the bread’ (lit.
‘...although the saliva of Shokir, who was very hungry, began to
drip, he did not reach...’). Shokir is the subject of both the main
clause and the relative, though not of the concessive clause;
nevertheless the sentence as a whole is well-formed.
Clauses without ки 4______£: In the following Semi-Restrictive relative
sentence, ki is omitted from each of the coordinate relative clauses,
though their verbs are finite: барои ran зада додани онх;о
шаб-е даркор, субх, надошта бошад, ё рузе даркор аст,
офтобаш фуру наравад «jLSjj	cs'
АЛр JJ-® uA-jL^-el <CJ-uul CSjjJ Ц? < J-iL 4 ~1 .nljJi
‘in order to have them talk, one needs a night that has no morning,
or a day when the sun never sets’ (‘...a day, its sun would not
set’).
Attraction: When the relative clause closely follows the head, the head
may attract an adposition which properly belongs to an anaphoric
element (now omitted) in the relative clause: аз ч,о-е ки омадй,
SYNTAX
407
ба хамон чо бар гард JjSjj L ц1 ~ д .	5* ‘ё°
back to where you came from’ (lit. ‘from the place that you came,
go back to the same place’; the preposition az is attached to the
main clause NP antecedent instead of a subordinate clause copy,
ba jo-e, ki az onjo omadv, cf. 4.32).
Not relative-and anaphor: Sometimes what may look at first like a
relative construction followed by an anaphoric pronoun or NP
turns out, when more of the sentence is revealed, to be an unrelated
construction: ба миёни рум хавлй расидам, ки аз мехмонхонаи
он хавлй Хамидч.он Давида баромад-у маро дида... jl _ » 
(jl -ya J "	(jl	Л (] Я jl ' J "'j CSJJ
Ij j__ьл-jjj ‘I [had] reached the yard of the house,
when Hamidjon ran out from the guestroom (of that house), saw
me, and...’. The sentence is a sequence of actions, including the ki
clause, which is thus less likely to be a relative clause (descriptive
in purpose) than a postposed temporal clause introducing a new
action (4.39, Temporal clauses).
4.46 Relative Clauses (5): Specialized Types
The following four categories represent particular uses of the Relative
construction for specialized purposes.
Non referential heads. When the antecedent designates an undefined,
as yet unidentified, entity (e.g., a postulated X, such as would do
Y, not a known A who! which actually does B), the verb in the
relative clause which specifies the quality postulated is in the
Subjunctive: каманд-е, ки бо дасти устози камандандоз
партофта шавад, харгиз хато намекунад L> <l£
LkA j-Д ч з-i j I All j 'i jl -,L,I ‘the/ a bow (that
is) shot by a master bowman never misses’; ба забон-е, ки мо
хам (онро) бифахмем, гаи занед! (IJ(jT) Ь>	«и
!а j.lj	n d i j ‘speak the/ a language that we (can) under-
stand too!’ (though translatable in English by either a definite or
an indefinite article, these heads are most likely Definite in
conception, and certainly in their direct juxtaposition to the relative
clause seem to be Restrictive relative heads); шоире/ хеч шоир
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нест, ки дар васфи бахор... шеър на-нависад д>\
з i-<i 1 * mi ... jI	.jj <i"i m«—i—i сI ц> there is no
poet who does not write poetry about the spring’; одаме ба мо
лозим аст, ки аз хеч чиз натарсад <_А «uu-^l 1_а_з ^jI
,< ...j j j ~_ & jI ‘we need a person who is not afraid of
anything’; ман... дар паи ёфтани тахаллусе афтодам, ки
маънихои бисьёре дошта бошад u м-J CA-iL jj ---й-о
aAL о ~i i7Jj I IM. j ^ЬЪц'и n <5 ‘I set about searching
for a pen-name that had/ would have many meanings’ (Present
Subjunctive; see 3.8). These three examples are Semi-restrictive
relatives (4.44), the -e being equivalent to yak ‘a, an’, with the
relative clause postposed.
Pronouns as relative heads. Personal pronouns are categorically Definite.
In the case of the 1st and 2nd, and 3rd human (yjl, вай ин
‘he, she’, инхо I_____________'t il ‘they’), even if a following relative
clause is semantically Semi-restrictive, they do not take the relative
-e: ман, ки хисоби абчддро ёд гирифтагй будам,... <lA «j-o
j-j ^<"1 »j-S jl_i I j,<	!  .1‘I, who had learned how to
count using the letters of the alphabet,...’; вай, ки коргар аст ва
ту, ки дехкон хастй, бояд бештар ошно шавед <—£
1	। j “ ш -5—11—1 <^.д. ш Л (jl ft Aj <А J । I jA jIA
‘he, who is a worker, and you, who are a farmer, must get better
acquainted’.
Selective relatives. By contrast, the demonstrative pronouns он
‘that one, that person’ and онхо/ онон jLsT \L_‘those ones,
those people’, which act as the selective pronouns ‘he (who...’),
‘those (who...’), in this function demand a Restrictive relative
clause. In the singular, they mostly stand without the linking -e:
он, ки ба мо даст дарозй кунад, бо сараш, албатта, бозй
кунад j-A (_sjLi <<t ~i i II .L <j_A ^Jljj	I—о_з <AlI
‘he who raises his hand against us surely risks his head’; одами
хуб он аст, ки аз кори бад ру метобад <<хз-—
j j j_i j LA JI <_A ‘the good man is he who turns away
from evil deeds’.
In the plural, demonstrative heads usually add the enclitic: ohoh-
e, ки дар шахрхо истидомат мекунанд, аз мехдати мо
SYNTAX
409
деддонон бехабар-анд *1 а ...I I д л, jj
jLLIaj La л j I < jjj£ (j-o ‘those who live in the
cities know nothing of the drudgery of us farmers’; ондо-е, {ки
лаб-лаби дуй мерафтанд,} ба дое рост омаданд, {ки об
аз ду дой роши дуйро бардошта, тамоман ба тарафи
киштзор гузаштааст} {«.i'iT	4_£]
<<LS-<iljj-j	(_?Ц“ jj jl «-jT J-jJ-oT <Z.1 I <|I J
[trj-uul «CbiiS jlj~i	i_sjda-j LaLaj'those who went right to the
channel’s edge came up against a spot where the water had swept
away the retaining dike in two places and completely invaded the
fields’ (a Semi-Restrictive relative clause follows the Non-restrict-
ive one).
Note that the equivalent demonstrative adjective phrases are
usually Non-restrictive: ин кас..., ки ба ту ёрмандии калон
расондааст cj-lJ	n jL j ~ j «...^^ ^1
‘this person, who has rendered you great assistance’.
With ни <La. (a particle related to the interrogative чй <La. ‘what?’),
the demonstrative pronoun forms он чи (ки) (4_£) 4_________aJj ‘that
which, what’: он чи ки шунидед овоз-и булбул будааст
о, Ц,16jj_> J J j jIjT д-р	4—£ 4 a-ST ‘what you heard was
(evidently) the song of a nightingale’. On ci does not normally
prompt an anaphoric pronoun object (on ci ki [onro] sunided...).
In elevated literary style, it may take -ro when it is itself the direct
object: on ci(-ro) ki medoned, bigii ‘tell me what you know’;
онхо он чи-ро ки дар «Китоб- уш-шифо» фунун-и само-и
табий ном дорад, мухтасаран дар бар мегирад 1j4_a-Sl
jj I j , ~t -> n <jjlj j»L> i । In pl n hi *1 a La и JI i_>La^ 4^
»j	* _>_j ‘they [sc. ‘these treatises’] comprise in summary
form that which in the Kitab al-shifa is called the branches of
natural celestial science’.
Questioning the head and relative. To question the identity of someone
or something defined by means of a pronoun and a relative clause,
the interrogative complement (question word and VP) is usually
embedded: ту кисти, ки аз ман савол кунй? t.~v Ц1. > < jS
JI j-uu jl 4_$ ‘who are you, to question me?’ (‘that you
should...’, subjunctive); он кй буда-аст, ки дами дар истода-
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CHAPTER FOUR
аст? Sajl ~ jj j*j <t_£ ajj-i, jl ‘who is that
(who is) standing by the door?’; ин чист, ки аз гор баромада
меояд? S	jl_c jl 4_$	j_J ‘what is this
(that is) coming out of the cave?’. In questions, plural demonstratives
as heads of Selective Relative clauses do not usually add the
Relative enclitic -e: ондо кй бошанд, ки бо мо саломалейк
накарданд? S л Л ~ 'i. $ J r	L_» L <_£ « Г, Л1 < Lpi
‘who are those people, who didn’t greet us?’ (subjunctive in main
clause; i.e. ‘who might they be?/ who do they think they are!’).
In archaic style, as in poetry or riddles, the interrogative com-
plement may come first: чист он, ки мил надорад-у дамчун
соат тик-тик, мекунад? -Дил j jjlaJi Jj—о 4_S < jT
Jj- *? j_i£ (j-o Jp Jp crfL,	‘what is it that has no hand,
but goes tick-tock like a clock? —The heart’ (hence the word for
‘riddle’: чистон	‘what-is-it’).
Indefinite relatives. Like Selective relative clauses, those beginning
with the distributive pronoun дар j_a ‘each, every’ (2.38) designate
a restricted class of entity, defined only by the clause itself: дар
(он) ки 4-----------£	‘anyone who, whoever’, дар (он) чи
4_a. (jT)_>-A ‘everything that, whatever’, and дар (ку)ч,о j_a
I 7-	‘everywhere that, wherever’, have several variants
each, and all in some uses function as Relative Conjuncts (cf. har
vaqt'whenever’, which is exclusively a Relative Conjunct; 4.26).
Examples: дар (кас-е) ки расид дарояд 4 S (, ч... <)>&
jjT jj j j ...j ‘whoever arrives, let them come in’ (for the tense of
the subordinate verb, see 4.35); дар он чи гуфтед дуруст аст
cu-eul cluuujj j jT.iX 4-aJ.T ‘all that you have said is true’; дар
чи бодо бод jl_> IjL> 4^.j-Л ‘whatever will be, will be’ (lit. ‘let
be whatever is to be’; see 3.7); дар чи ки шумо ба ман
гуфтед, ман фадмидам j_o < > а < j_o_, I п л
j i ‘everything you have told me I have understood’. More
than one such phrase may appear in the same clause: дар кас дар
чи ходад: нон, пул, харбуза, тарбуз, гулунг, мавиз оварда
дидад .	 ь jj-jj А < Jj—1 <jLj : j-aIj	4_^.	j-a
j-aj &jjjl Jjj—о	‘anyone may contribute anything he
wants [to]—bread, money, watermelons, melons, dried apricots,
SYNTAX
411
raisins’.
‘Wherever’ appears to have the most variants: дар куч,о санг
ояд бар пои ланг овд л_Л	_>_> хЛ I ? ‘the
sore foot always catches the stone’ (prov., ‘wherever a stone might
come, it comes against the lame foot’); дар кудой ки равй,
фадмон, ки мо кистем 1_» jl « ь	(J
j"  .._1*ч ‘wherever you go, tell (people) who we are’; дар кудо-е
равй, тандо нести ОТ ы. jLjA~> <c5JJ ( ^1 -ч < ‘wherever
you go, you are not alone’; дар 4,0 ки равй, ман хам аз
адиб-ат меравам	<** i * о jl р Ф-°	1 т j
‘wherever you go, I will follow you’.
‘However/ in whatever way’: хар гуна/ тарз/ хел ки бошад,
хуб мешавад jj »	< j_±L < \\<Cj-5 j-ft
‘however it is/ whatever it is like, it will turn out all right’ (for
хар чанд ‘however (much), notwithstanding, although’,
see 4.34; for дар год ‘if (ever)’, see 4.35).
4.47 Nominalizations
A salient function of three of the Tajik participles (types karda, kardagi,
mekardagi), as has been noted incidentally (3.43-44, 3.46), is to anchor
extended adjectival phrases that are the semantic equivalent of several
kinds of Relative clause, thus reducing to a morphological feature
what in common Persian is generally a syntactic one. Here further
examples of all three participles in these Turkish-style constructions
will be related systematically to the typology of Relative clauses as
described in the preceding five sections.
Not examined below are those with only one argument in excess of
the participle (typically an adverbial or a pronominal enclitic), which
are close to Persian-style (and English) reduced relative clauses: ман
дандол-и {бо имом шуда-ро} нак,л кардам ^1—Л !_>} Jl
JUi {I j described the altercation with the imam’; хардо-и
{бордо-шон фуровардашуда} дар куча истода буданд
jJijj-j ftjl" ..i d jj	bjjjlj_i jLiLa jl_> ‘donkeys with their
burdens unloaded stood in the street’ (see 3.43(2)); {аз фронт
омадагидо} дар кадомаш аллакай содиби идора шуд, раис
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CHAPTER FOUR
шуд-ку! . Jjljl	j_s> {Ls^j^T j_s Jl}
i^u-2. j ‘each one of those who have come from the front have
already been made heads of departments, chairmen even!’ (cf. Selective
relatives, below).
Restrictive relative (Definite head; 4.44): тарси {дар димоги ту
чандин сол гуншударо} якбора баровардам _,а}
йjl .‘‘Ч1 {IJl xu j-S ‘I removed once
and for all the fear that had been stored in your brain for so many
years’; Мамарадаб... дасти {гарната доштаашро} ба хаво
бардошт Ij. $ j {lj (jiI ч * Л-1?	е., ..„j	, ,^,.1 * л
cu-iljj_> ‘Mamarajab [Muhammad-rajab]... raised his hand, in
which he held a grenade, into the air’ (not Non-restrictive, despite
the pauses in English; cf. ‘...the hand in which he held...’);
колхозчиён меваи {ба бозор оварда мешудагиро} ба сабадхо
до карданд {IjjT jljL «_>} jL^jLkJLS
jJijLx j ‘the collective farmworkers packed into baskets
the fruit that they were (going) to take to the market’.
With a partitive phrase as head: яке аз самовархонахои
{сохиб-аш гурехтарафта}  -^1 <lsLxjjl д ц jl
j <l.t \ ij_S ‘one of the teahouses the proprietors of which
have/ had fled’; ман аз он табибони {шумо мегуфтагй}
нестам “ <.< j ' {uX*i L^i} jl ? ? ? k jl jl ‘1 am not
one of those doctors you spoke of’ (‘spoken of by you’).
Semi-restrictive relative (Specific head; 4.44): The head comes before
the relative phrase if this contains a possessive anaphor, and after
the relative phrase if this contains a prepositional phrase: чун
тудаи кохи ба зер-аш ахгар гузоштаистода д>(^ j^x
saLT-uu-il < Л	uij-jJ-j ‘like a pile of straw underneath
which hot ashes have been placed’; шахсе салла-аш бо гарданаш
печон-да(шуда) а_Л<) &аД| ? цкДаj-S L I <lL-u (t \ Л, ‘а
person with /who had his turban wrapped around his neck’; this
description, with different main clauses, is repeated in several
different ways by the same writer, including a Relative clause:
шахсе, ки саллааш бо гарданаш печонда (шуда) буд
1 л.} олД1—х—lu	। 1 сн141 ш	-ъ—ш ...whose
turban was wrapped around his neck’; {ба к,уръон амал
SYNTAX
413
намудаги} кас, муъмину мусалмон аст J_a____с j_____5
 ! jI Ju.., n j j-aj—o «^^ j__aJi‘a person who acts in
accordance with the Koran is a believer and a Muslim’.
Selective relative (4.46): The participle alone replaces both the pro-
noun(s) oh(xo) (t-fc)jl and the VP of the Relative clause, and
stands at the end of the Relative phrase: {дар хона будагихо}
хеч надида буданд jSjaxuxl g_j_A	<t_J—jj]
‘those who are/ were in the room saw nothing’; {бадкирдорй ва
ёгигй мекардагихоро} мо ана хамин тавр сазой мекунем
Jj-L Jj nt «LSI L-a	t><j rU J
»  ’«<  ~	‘this is how we requite those who commit mis-
chief and rebellion’; {каламу когази шарикашро бе ч,авоб
наме- гирифтагй,} {ба шарики {каламу когаз надошта-
ги}-аш каламу когази зиёдии худро медодагй}... нагзтар
мебошад a<_>1j-a.	A j_cl_£ j
I jjjA J j jJ_5 l{	iclS j ti-jj-i-j)
' AL. jSj-i-i	‘he who does not take his class-
mate’s pen and paper without permission, who gives his own
surplus pen and paper to his classmate who doesn’t have any... is
the better [student)’.6 Of the two serial Relative phrases, the second
contains a third, nested, Relative phrase.
6 From pre-Soviet examples cited in Rzehak 2001, pp. 53, 55 (as also the ‘Koran’
and ‘doctors’ sentences); Arabic orthography has been slightly modified, and Cyrillic
transcription supplied.
CHAPTER FIVE
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
NOMINALS: CONVERSION AND SUFFIXES
5.1	Homonymy and Conversion
Like English, Tajik tolerates a fair amount of derivational homonymy,
which is disambiguated syntactically. Unlike radical homonymy (the
coincidence of unrelated words), which is a mild nuisance and tends to
restrict the lexicon, derivational homonymy is a source of creative
word building and hence lexical expansion. The noun ором j I ‘quiet,
calm, tranquility’ is also the adjective (both predicative and attributive)
‘quiet, calm, tranquil’. A word such as хоб _JjA may be a noun with
two distinct meanings, ‘sleep’ (a mass noun) and ‘dream’ (a count
noun, xob-ho ‘dreams’); it may additionally function as a predicative
adjective: хоб аст .,..1 <_>lj___a. ‘he is asleep’ (presumably derived
from a prepositional phrase, dar/ ba xob ‘in/ at sleep’).
Conversion is the use of a word of one lexical category in another
category, without morphological change. In Tajik it occurs most readily
from adjective to noun status, but also from noun to adjective and
adverb, and from verb stem to nominal. Words that are substantivized
(used as nouns) may usually take on all the grammatical functions of
nouns, though (like the adjectival and adverbial migrants from other
categories) they may in practice be confined to certain idioms.
Adjective to noun: In being substantivized, the meaning of an adjective
is generalized: марди давон jljj_o ‘young man’; як давон
^1 ‘a youth’, давонон jLilj___________a. ‘young people, the young’. So
likewise калон jiLS ‘big, great, adult’; калонхо La jiLS ‘grown-ups,
elders’, калону хурд j ‘old and young, children and adults’;
нобино I ' ‘blind; blind person’, pl. нобиноён jUI \ । >Li ‘the
blind’. Often an adjective may be more readily substantivized in the
plural than the singular: камбагал Jj»_> ‘poor, indigent’; одам-е
416
CHAPTER FIVE
камбагал Jj_>^£ ‘a poor person’, камбагалон	‘the
poor’.
Some substantives (notably those of impermanent state or status)
are indifferently nouns or adjectives according to context: савор
jIj—lx, ‘mounted, on board, riding’: фойтун савор шуд jj_________L_>(_a
j I ‘he got into a carriage’ (and other constructions; see 2.41);
як савори дазок, JIJ—2 jl j_______‘a Kazakh horseman’; пиёда
ftjLxj ‘on foot, walking’: кушуни пиёда Jj 4, a ‘infantry’ (lit
‘troops of foot’, adj.; also пиёдакушун Jj 44a hjLl, as a Determina-
tive compound, 5.7); as a noun, ‘infantryman, pedestrian’: саворон-ро
чй парво-и пиёда? $	^1	I jjl jl j ‘what does the
cavalry care for the foot soldier?’ (dative use of-ro; see 2.18).
Noun to Adjective: A noun becomes an adjective by specialization of
its meaning. Often the noun is an abstract of quality or state (cf. xob
above), and the adjective then designates the person or thing of that
quality or in that state; such adjectives are often limited to (or more
common in) predicate use: зур j ‘force, strength’; одами зур aj!
jjJ ‘strong person’; чур ‘harmony, concord; matching, a pair’:
ин дуто (бо хам) дур нест	(^_а l_>) bjj ^1 ‘these two
don’t match/ fit/ go together’.
Arabic borrowings are prominent in this category: хилват jJS.
‘seclusion, private place’; кучаи хилват cl,j I <	£ ‘quiet street’
(cf. SP xalvat). A few such nouns appear as adverbs rather than adjectives:
рохат j ‘comfort, ease’; рохат хоб кунед! 1» ,'< jA oJj
‘sleep comfortably / easy / well’ (cf. rahat as an adjective in SP). A
few Arabic loans have been totally redefined as adjectives in modem
Tajik; their original quality noun sense is met only in older literature,
and they form new quality nouns by suffixation: саломат
‘healthy, well’, саломатй	‘health, soundness’; зарур
‘necessary’ (often predicative; the attributive synonym is зарурй
________ub, with an adjectival suffix, see 5.4; ‘necessity’ is зарур-ият
5.3).
Arabic nouns used in Composite verbs are sometimes found as
adjectives: куфл аст e., ,.„l Ji__3, colloq. qulf ast ‘it is locked’ (qufl
‘lock’, qufl! qulf kardan ‘to lock’; cf. 5.18); дил-и сихат о.ч Jj
‘a healthy heart’ (cf. sihatyoftan/ sudan ‘get well’, 5.19).
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
417
Verb to substantive: Stem I or Stem II forms of some verbs (3.2-3)
may occur without modification as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs (as
also in combination or with affixes: see 5.9-10). Stem I (the base for
active voice and present tense) tends to provide mostly adjectives,
Stem II (the base for passive voice and past tenses) mostly nouns.
From bastanJ band- ‘to close, block, tie’: pox; банд аст cu-i-J j-Ь J j
‘the road is closed’; бо кори худ банд буд jj-j j-Ь jjb, jLS L> ‘he
was tied up/ busy with his work’ (predic. adjs.); as a noun, Stem I
band has a variety of meanings, e.g., ‘bond, link; barrier, dam; joint;
bundle, bunch’ (the last often as a numerator, 2.50). Stem II occurs
also in the sense ‘bunch, bundle, pack’ (a doublet of basta, 5.2), and
thus as a numerator: ду бает х,езум j л> .л ।.<« .> jj ‘two bundles of
firewood’; and as a manner nominal in phrases such as кад-у бает j_i
- j ‘height and build’, баст-и салла <lLu = ц. j ‘style [i.e., way
of tying] of turban’.
From soxtan/ soz- ‘to construct, arrange; suit, conform’, Stem I:
соз jL-u (predic. adj., adv.) ‘suitable, in harmony, apt(ly)’: ана хамин
до-и даре барои гузаргох соз аст	Ljjj^I—=?•	4-:‘*
.-.^.1	‘this spot on the river is suitable for a ford’; шумо
хеле соз ran задед j-jjJ	JI—o I j A. I—о—i ‘you spoke very
articulately/to the point’; оркестр бисер соз менавохт j 'i ... j <jl
д jl— j1...............orchestra played very harmoniously/ were
very together’. Stem II: coxt ‘structure, construction, artefact’
(noun, as head of izofat)-. сохти бадан Jj_j exAl--------‘anatomy,
constitution’ (‘structure of the body’); сохти Тодикистон euAl——
jI‘made in Tajikistan’ (lit. ‘artefact of T.’).
Similarly, from boftan ‘to weave’: бофти хонагй	cj-iU
‘(of) domestic weave, woven at home’; from raftan! rav- ‘to go’:
рафти об u_>l j ‘current, flow (of water)’; рафти кор _,L£
‘tempo, pace, system (of work, activity)’; from the Complex verb
daromadan!daro(y) ‘to come in’: даромад j_al jj ‘income’.
A few Imperative forms may be converted to adjectives: бидав
jj_i ‘swift’ (of a horse; davidan ‘to run’), аспи бидав jaj .-j-ujI
‘racehorse’; бизан jJ-j ‘bold, daring” (zadan!zan- ‘to strike’).
418
CHAPTER RVE
5.2	Suffixes. (1): Main Noun Formatives
Suffixation is the principal means of lexical derivation; more than
forty nominal suffixes have been claimed for Tajik. Several of the
most common ones are homonymous, the same final syllable serving
two or more quite different functions; care must therefore be taken to
identify the category of the base word, and the sense of the syntactic
matrix. Some of the following (and others not listed here) have already
been illustrated under Adjectives (2.39), Adverbs (2.46, 2.48), Numbers
(2.52, 2.53), and Verbs (3.38). Suffixes carry final stress and are an
integral part of the noun or adjective they form. Those beginning with
consonants may occur in pairs, with the initial consonant voiced or
unvoiced depending on the final consonant of the base word. Those
beginning with vowels may acquire an initial buffer of various sorts.
The first of the two lists of noun formatives is limited to eight
suffixes that are fully productive, with a large number of derivatives,
-a after a vowel -я a nominal suffix from several ultimate
sources, with several functions, in some of which it is still productive
(see also the adjectival formative -a, 5.4). From concrete nouns
and adjectives it produces particular instances or metaphorical
specializations: зарда sJjJ ‘bile, gall’ (zard ‘yellow’), даст-а
<i T . .>a ‘handle, haft; handful, bunch, group, set’ (dast ‘hand’); e.g.,
арра-и ду-даста <i ~> .„ajj ojl ‘two-handled saw’, derivationally
distinct from the adjective-adverb дудаст-а <~i jj ‘two-handed;
with both hands’ (cf. 2.53, under Cooperative adverbials). From
numerals are produced metaphorical collectives: х,афта <i ~ a »
‘week’ (haft ‘seven’), панч,а < ? '_> ‘claw, (grasping) hand’ (panJ
‘five’).
From Stem I of a few verbs it generates nouns of activity, of
single instance, or product: ханда ajuA ‘laugh(ter)’ (xandidan ‘to
laugh’), гиря <_jj_S ‘weeping’ (giristan ‘to weep’), ларза ь
‘trembling, shiver(ing)’ (larzidan ‘to tremble’).
-ак after a vowel -як <Xj-: (a) Added to entity nouns, NPs, and
personal names, it forms diminutives, usually endearing, but
sometimes contemptuous in connotation: мургак _>_= ‘birdie’,
писарак ‘laddie, kid’ (pisar ‘boy’), Амонак iiLI ‘dear
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
419
Amon’, набераяк-ам «<	__j____‘my dear granddaughter’;
модар-и мехрубонак dLLj ц n jjLo ‘mommy dear’ (modari
mehrubon, ‘kind mother’, the scope of the diminutive embracing
the whole izofat phrase).
(b) Added to verbal agentives or suitable nouns, it forms concrete
instrument!ves: обпошак  < Л.1 < .T ‘watering can’ (ob ‘water’
and Stem I of posidan ‘to spray’); бандак j_> ‘pin, clasp’
(Stem I of bastan ‘to fasten’), гушак j-S ‘(telephone) receiv-
er, handset’ (giiS ‘ear’). It also forms a few instance nouns from
verb stems: чинаки дуйюми пахта <t—s—k_>	jj . £ Aia. ‘the
second cotton harvest’ (cidan ‘to pick, gather’), идгардак
 r ‘holiday visiting of relatives by children’ (id ‘holiday’,
gastan ‘to tour, make the rounds’).
For adverbial uses, see 5.5.
-акак an intensive form of the above, gives, e.g., кам-акак ‘a
pinch, spot’ (kam ‘little [in quantity]’), хурдакак	‘a bit,’
(xurd ‘small’); чанд рузакак	‘a few (short) days’
(diminution or approximation); and some endearing adverbs: 6a
шарте ки ту дасту руятро нагзакак бишуй jS j i
.j>  <<jj ' I jj j < ‘provided you wash your hands
and face nicely’ (nagz ‘good, nice, well’).
-rap jX-, -кор form agent nouns and agentive adjectives from
nouns of entity or activity (occasionally, from adjectives; but not
directly from verb stems): коргар j-S jLS ‘(manual) worker’, (kor
‘work’); хиёнат-кор	_> A. ‘traitor; treacherous’ (xiyonat
‘betrayal’); хилa-rap j <«i I ‘deceitful, cunning’ (hila ‘trick,
deception’); варзиш-гар j < jj ‘athlete, sportsman’ (varzis
‘sport’; cf. SP varzes-kar).
A third variant, -gor, evidently a voiced version of -kor, is no
longer productive: ситамгор ~ .... ‘tyrant, oppressor’ (sitam
‘misrule, oppression’); гунахгор jl ‘sinner’ (gunoh! gunah
‘sin’); рафтагор jl<~> »j ‘headed for, on the way to’ (with izofat\
2.41). This also occurs in senses other than agentive: рузгор
jlXyjj ‘time, era; domesticity, household’ (гйг ‘day’). An earlier
form ёдгор jI____SjU ‘memento, keepsake; relic, legacy’ is now
usually ёдгорй jLSjL (a substantivized adjectival -i, see 5.4).
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CHAPTER FIVE
-гарй	—S- : in addition to being the noun of occupation derived
from existing nouns ending in the agentive -gar (+ noun formative
-Й below; e.g., дуредгарй	‘carpentry’), this compo-
site suffix functions in its own right even when there exists no
actual or plausible agentive in -gar (a “leapfrogging” suffix; cf.
Stem I + -7, 5.9). Mainly it replaces noun formative -i when the
base noun already ends in -й босмачи-гарй
‘state of being a counter-revolutionary guerrilla, basmachism’,
суфи-гарй	‘Sufism’,	‘soldiering, mili-
tary status’. It is limited to forming nouns of activity or institution,
when the base noun is a human agent, and does not attach to
adjectives such as холй <_s-l I_‘empty’ (‘emptiness, vacuum’ is
холигй o j 11—i., cf. rozigl ‘satisfaction’; and ‘basmachism’ is
also босмачигй j -> ч_______using the phonetic variant -gi).
Tajik usage does not correspond fully with that of SP; e.g. Taj.
дин-и буддой	‘Buddhism’ (SP budaigari). In Tajik,
the suffix is also attached to some nouns ending in a consonant:
одамгарй	‘humanity, humanitarianism’ (odam ‘human
being’).
Nouns in -garl may evolve concrete senses: боигарй  .1 
‘wealth, riches’, i.e., not only the status of a rich person, but the
material possessions, as in боигарих;ои табий ^1	. .1 .
к j j k ‘natural resources’. (Note also the orthographic peculiarity
in Cyrillic: the base noun бой ‘rich man’ loses its final
semi-consonant у before quasi-yotated i, the string й-и merging
into и—see 1.12. In Perso-Arabic this word may also be written
-истон j I mi-: forms locative nouns, esp. names of countries, on the
names of the inhabitants: диргиз-истон ‘Kirghizia, Kirgizstan’
(Qirgiz).
-иш (ji.- : from Stem I of verbs, forms nouns of activity and/ or
instance: дониш ‘knowledge’ (donistan ‘to know’, etc.);
numerous and still productive: густариш J j ‘expansion,
development’ (gustardan ‘to spread’). This may be applied to
several Complex verbs: во-хур-иш J j ‘encounter, meeting’
(yo-xiirdan ‘to encounter’), but not normally to Composite verbs
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
421
(cf. -i, 5.9. For -i§, see further, 3.38).
Й (-ГЙ (^2-) forms abstract nouns of quality from adjectives and
type nouns, of activity from agentives, of state from participles,
etc.: давонй ^1 ‘youth’ (цавон jl’young, young man’);
ак;ибмонй ,_р1_д<_ia r ‘backwardness’ (aqib-mondan ‘to stay/ be
left behind’. After the vowel -a (-a <_-) and sometimes after -й
this suffix usually takes the form -гй (see 1.8): гуруснагй
o \j—S (literary), гушнагй \ o._______________S (colloquial) ‘hunger’
(gurusna/ gusna ‘hungry’); зиндагй	‘life’ (зинда sj2>j
‘alive, living’; orig. active participle of zistan! zi- ‘to live’);
норози-гй <bl jLi ‘dissatisfaction’ (розй j ‘content,
satisfied’ with neg. prefix; 5.6);дамвазифагй	‘identi-
ty of function’ (ham-vazifa ‘having the same duty/ function’, see
5.6).
In Perso-Arabic, especially after -i this variant may be
written separately:	и-.д1 j ‘satisfaction, consent’, к;озигй
‘qozi-ship, status of judge’.
Such nouns readily evolve concrete senses, as ширинй
.j ' „• ‘sweets, candy’ (lit. ‘sweetness’, < sirin ‘sweet’; itself
orig. < sir ‘milk’ + adj. suffix of material, see 5.5); сиёхй
‘ink’ (lit. ‘blackness’, < siyoh ‘black’). From agentive nouns (see
-gar and -ci, and 5.9) are produced nouns of occupation:
мошинсозй (_gjL	a ‘car manufacture’ (sextan ‘to con-
struct’; cf. 5.1), хилагарй ^^2 ‘deceitfulness, cunning’ and,
where appropriate, location: бензинфурушй
‘filling station’ (benzin ‘gasoline’, furuxtan ‘to sell’).
This suffix’s continued productivity is seen in nouns of activity
formed on Stem I of the central verb of quite complex idioms:
аз-назар-гузаронй	j_k_L jl ‘consideration, review’ (az
nazar guzarondan, lit. ‘to pass by [one’s| view’); аз-худ-кунй jl
'»< aj____i. ‘diligence, self-motivation’ (az xud kardan ‘to do by
oneself’). If intransitive, these are construed in izofat with the
subject: azxudkunii korgaron ‘the workers’ dedication’; if transitive,
with the object: баъд аз ба-хисоб-гири-и фаъолиятхои
досусони хоридй (^Laclx-JI—«—«	—=ь_> Jl а * >
jLk	‘after (a) taking into account (of) the activities
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CHAPTER FIVE
of foreign spies’. (For adverbials formed with this suffix, see 2.46,
2.48; for compounds, see further 5.9.)
-ча 4-a.- forms diminutives from nouns and adjectives (neutral, en-
dearing, jocular, or contemptuous): дегча ‘small cooking pot’ (deg
‘cauldron, pan’), духтарча	‘dear daughter’ (duxtar ‘girl,
daughter’; cf. duxtar-ak ‘little girl’, 5.2); дарёча-и Варзоб-и мо
I—° ’-г1* j J3 М-Ц? jJ ‘our dear old Varzob river’; with colors, it
denotes approximation or lack of saturation: сафедча <	, a ...
‘whitish’ (safed ‘white’), кабуд-ча <Lj.j‘pale blue’.
With terms that already connote positive values, it may constitute
contempt or ridicule: шоирчахо La <_^jxLi, ‘versifiers, doggerel-
mongers’ (soir ‘poet’; the put-down results not solely from the
suffix, but also from the collateral morphology of vernacular plural
-ho as distinct from formal шоирон J I j_cLi or шуаро I j * Л );
Рустамча <-> n", j ‘wee Rustam’ (i.e., a two-bit Hercules).
-чй (Turk.): A highly productive suffix, forming agentives, and
nouns denoting persons connected in a more general way with the
activity, quality or entity of the base word (noun or adjective),
хизматчй SA ‘employee, clerical worker’ (xizmat ‘service,
employment’), хисобчй ?	 -< ‘accountant’ (hisob ‘calcula-
tion’); аълочй I ‘honor student’ (a’lo ‘superior, excellent’).
The animate plural is written -чиён jl i^.-, but the plural in -ho
(written separately in Perso-Arabic: La^^ - ) is more usual. The
activity noun adds -ги сгахановчигй u_sl jl Al",
‘stakhanovism’ (staxanovci ‘Stakhanovite, over-achiever’).
5.3 Suffixes. (2): Other Noun Formatives
The following eleven suffixes are minimally, or no longer, productive,
while remaining recognizable in some commonly-occurring Tajik words.
Not included are formatives (such as the locative год ь1___S ‘place,
time’, and хона <lS(_A ‘house, building, room’) which are transparent
lexical nouns, or verb stems; these may be found among compounding
elements (5.7).
-бон oL- (orig. ‘lord, guardian’), characterizes a person entrusted
with charge or operation of something, and forms a few instru-
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
423
mentives: иода-бон jUbjL ‘herdsman’ (poda ‘herd’), бог-бон
jl____□___cU ‘gardener’ (bog ‘garden’), дарвозабон jjl_>6jljjj
‘goalkeeper’ (orig. ‘gatekeeper,’); бод-бон jjL-jjLj ‘sail’ (bod
‘wind’, lit. ‘wind-warden’), соя-бон jjL>4_jL^ ‘sunshade, parasol’
(soya ‘shade’).
-вар jj- and -yp jj-: these variants denote persons characterized by
the entity or activity of the base referent (cf. -ci): сухан-вар
jj •» ________uu ‘wordsmith, poet’ (suxan ‘word’), шино-вар jjLlui
‘swimmer’ (sino ‘swimfming]’), музд-вар, музд-ур ‘wage-
earner, day worker’.
-вор(й)	probably a nominalization of adjectival -vor ‘like’
(5.5), these variants form collectives, ‘X and the like’: озук;а-ворй
I j jjf ‘foodstuffs, provisions’ (ozuqa ‘food, ration’), дору-
вор jIjjjIj ‘medicine, pharmaceuticals’ (doru ‘medicament,
drug’).
-дон jlj- forms a noun of receptacle or container: яхдон jjlj______k_j
‘refrigerator’ (yax ‘ice’), оташдон jjlj .□~T ‘stove, brazier’ (otas
‘fire’), сиёхидон jjljj^-al _> ... ‘inkwell’ (сиёхй ^1 _> ... ‘ink’,
orig. ‘blackness’; see -i, 5.2). This should not be confused with
the agentive suffix -don which is Stem I of донистан ^.'Jj‘to
know’ ( 5.9).
-ича <i , perhaps a variant of -ca (5.2): the ending of several dim-
inutives, as дарича 4_______jj ‘trapdoor, wicket-gate’ (dar ‘door’);
бузича «I _ j - ‘kid, baby goat’ (buz ‘goat’).
-пят cZj- and -ия cl-: no longer productive, these typical Arabic(ate)
endings are lexical parts of many loanwords (e.g., ахамият
 -Л ~ al ‘importance’), but have also been used in Tajik Persian to
create new nouns both from Arabic loanwords and stems and from
Russian and native adjectives and nouns.
The more frequent -iyyat characterizes an abstract quality or
activity: партиявият	‘party loyalty’, coined as a trans-
lation of Russian партийность on the adjective партиявй
j^j_____‘pertaining to the (Communist) party’ (see -i, 5.4);
интенсивият j • ‘intensivity’ (well-motivated, since the
derivative with -i on the borrowed stem intensiv- is adjectival,
i.e., intensive ‘intensive’), ро\бар-ият cu-jj—j-»Ij ‘leadership’
424
CHAPTER FIVE
(unmotivated, merely doubling the more usual родбар-й j;
see -i, 5.2). Some such coinages may be further utilized as a
compound adjective or adverb: бо-муваффак;-ият ° «j_»L
‘successful(ly)’ (muvaffaq ‘successful’ + bo ‘with’, cf. 5.6).
The ending -iyya characterizes institutions, collectives, or instru-
mentives: Накдпбандия <» л.. л. ° ‘the Naqshbandi Sufi order’;
назария «UjlJJi ‘theory’ (pl. nazariya-ho', derived adj. назариявй
j k '> ‘theoretical’; < nazar ‘view, opinion’). The similarity of
Rus. partiya to this class is coincidental.
-	o L- forms a few quality nouns from Persian adjectives of dimension
and temperature: падно I ' д ‘breadth’ (pahn ‘broad, wide’),
жарфо L_ajj ‘depth’ (zarf‘deep’), гармо 1_______S ‘heat’, (garm
‘hot, warm’), сармо I__OJ ‘cold’ (sic, from сард jj___‘cold,
chilly’; хунук . £ ~>A and хунукй ^•s'iA (-Г, 5.2) are more common
in Tajik).
-	ok , added to verb Stem I, characterizes a collective product
noun (a mass noun): хурок <£1 jj A. ‘food, victuals’ (xiirdan ‘to
eat’), пушок <£1________‘clothing’ (piisidan ‘to wear’); хошок
<£LiLk ‘short grass, chaff, rubbish’, from a noun stem, is probably
not an original member of this (non-productive) class.
-она <Al- forms nouns denoting the monetary reward or traditional
gift associated with a service or occasion: идона r ‘holiday
gift’ (id ‘holiday’), хизматона <i M ". A ‘gratuity, tip’ (xizmat
‘service’), модона «liLaLo ‘(monthly) salary’; after -a, takes the
form -gona, and with a further variant in мужда-гона/ -гонй
(jSlSjj_a\ <C>IS‘gratuity for bringing good news’.
	op j I- (non-productive) on selected Stems II generates a verbal noun
of activity: кирдор jfj‘deed(s), action; behavior’ (kardan ‘to
do’), рафтор jl_______□_s j ‘manner, conduct’ (raftan ‘to go’), didor
‘visit’ (didan/ bin- ‘to see’); from xaridan ‘to buy’, however, is
made an agentive: харидор	‘purchaser, customer’; from
giriftan! gir- ‘to grasp’, a patient noun-adjective: гирифтор
jLi-i‘entangled, afflicted* (for idioms, see 2.41); from murdan
‘to die’, an adjective and composite verb: мурдор jhj-a ‘impure,
nasty, base’ (orig. ‘carrion’); murdor kardan ‘to sully, desecrate,
violate’.
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
425
-он jl- (productive, within its limits) added to Stem I of a (usually
composite) verb, this generates a class of nouns denoting ritual
and life-cycle celebrations: додо-бинон/ оча-бинон jjLi_i_>ljlj
jI ; < .T\ ‘visit of the father/ mother (to the new bride’s home)’
(-didan ‘to see, visit’); бурё-кубон	‘housewarming’
(buryo ‘reed mat’, ktiftan ‘to beat’), гахдора-бандой &_>lj_$
(jlj । ‘ceremony when a newborn is first tied into the cradle’
(gahvora ‘cradle’, bastanl band- ‘to bind’). Sometimes the noun
formative i (5.2) is added: рубинонй	‘raising of the
bride’s veil’.
-cop jLlu-Z-зор jI j—‘place abounding in’: чашма-сор	-a.
‘land rich in springs’, дарахтзор jl jdxA‘woodland’ (daraxt
‘tree’).
5.4 Suffixes (3): Main Adjective and Adverb Formatives
Below are listed the principal productive adjective and adverb suffixes.
Some of these formatives have already been mentioned in Chapter 2.
-a <t_- makes numerical or quantitative expressions into adjectives or
adverbs: дуруя <_>з J3j ‘two-faceted, two-faced, hypocritical’ (du
‘two’, гй(у) ‘face’), пандсол-а <dl ...	'i_> ‘of five years (adj.); a
five-year-old, five year plan’ (panj ‘five’, sol ‘year’), хдфтод-
Хаштод-кадама <_a T ~i i t ‘of 70-80 paces’, хардоя
j_a ‘ubiquitous’ (har ‘every’, jo(y) ‘place’). Expressions of
time become relative adjectives: адабиёти имруза cJ------------j->jI
ajjj____J ‘today’s/ contemporary literature’, мехмонии дишаба
, л, ,л '.I л ‘last night’s party’. For -a as a distributive suffix
(du-nafar-a ‘two-person’, etc.) see 2.53.
-акй ‘characteristic of, produced/ conveyed by’, esp. in relation
to communication: ханда-и дуругакй jjj ki'ii. ‘false/
hypocritical laugh(ter)’ (durug ‘lie, falsehood’), фармон-и
даханакй <' м	‘oral/ verbal command’ (dahan/ dahon
‘mouth’); рахакй/ рохакй шудан	j\ ‘to start
off, get underway’ (roh ‘road’). As adverbs, such forms have a
broad application: дахонакй ‘by word of mouth’; дастакй
... »‘by hand’, аспакй ^£^1 ‘on horseback’; зур ба зуракй
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CHAPTER FIVE
табассум кард	—лЗ	jjj-j jjj ‘he forced a smile,
smiled with an effort’ (zur ‘force’). See also 2.48.
-вй (_$j- -гй see -й
-Й eg- (after a vowel, -гй or -вй ^j-): forms relative adjectives
from nouns. This is the most general and neutral adjectival suffix,
originating in both Middle Persian -Ik and Arabic -iyy\ thus, of the
synonymous variants изофй	and изофагй \u>< Ы______jal
4_iLbl ‘additional’, the former can be seen as a complete Arab-
ic loanword in itself, since it is formed directly on the (Arabic)
stem, while the latter is formed with the Persian suffix on the
borrowed form of the word, izofa ‘addition’ (izofi additionally
means ‘pertaining to izofaf). In Perso-Arabic, for common
derivatives of words in final -a (vocalic h), the h may be deleted
and -gz joined directly to the stem: хонагй _______a. ‘domestic,
household —’ (xona ‘house’); but for new or less common
derivatives, it is usual to write the suffix separately: утопиягй
<_uLjl ‘utopian’, афсонагй <11 al ‘legendary, fairytale
—The same procedure is usual in the case of the variant -vz
(generally for Ar. loans): аньанавй u r ‘traditional’, but
оммавй	‘popular, mass —’.
Examples: хатмй T < ‘definit(iv)e, conclusive; obligatory,
required’ (xatm ‘conclusion’); ра\матй " j ‘deceased, late’
(rahmat ‘[divine] mercy’); европагй, аврупой ?L_>jjjI
‘European’ (respectively MLT and current forms); партиявй
^j-G^fof the) Party’, as in biletipartiyavi ‘Party card’.
The morphophonological variants -gi (Persian) and -vi (Arabic)
are not used with etymological consistency: кабилавй ^jl > 4 or
к,абилагй _i , a ‘tribal’ (Ar. qabila ‘tribe’). The suffix is never
attached directly to a word ending in -al -e, as it may be in SP.
This suffix is frequently used to form compound adjectives
based on numerical NPs or izofat NPs of quantity or quality (cf. -a
above): хона-и ёздах-болор-й bjjU ‘an eleven-
beam house’ (yozdah ‘eleven’, bolor ‘shaped log for construction’,
a traditional measure of length); хурок-и нисфирузй <£1 jj___i.
jjj  a .<•>’> ‘a half-day’s food ration’ (xur-ok ‘food’ [see 5.3] +
nisf-i riiz ‘half [of] a day’); мадраса-и хишт-и-пухта-гй
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
427
~  c.i^> < <i_‘college (built) of baked bricks’ (xist
‘brick’, puxtan ‘to cook, bake’, Past Participle II).
It may also be applied, attributively, to casual or alienable refer-
ents, often formed from an izofat or prepositional phrase: суфача-и
берунидуккони-и кар сартарош j_a
(jid^5j-ш ‘the bench outside any barber’s shop’ (birunidukkoni is
an ad-hoc relative adjective, not lexicalized); similarly, одам-и
руйхавлигй 1‘the man at the front door’ (ruy-i
havti ‘at the face of the [walled] house; porch’), сангхой тагидаштй
~i	La , £ 1.., ‘the stones at the bottom of the field’ ([dar]
tag-i dast-, for the preposition, see 2.21).
The suffix may replace foreign adjectival suffixes on a noun or
stem which itself is hardly or not at all used in Tajik: аграрй
‘agrarian’, демократ-й ^^Loj ‘democratic’, генерал-й
‘general’. Adjectives in -7are readily substantivized: эронй
^1 ‘Iranian, an Iranian’, дубайтй "» j >jj ‘(verse) couplet’
(du ‘two’, bayt ‘verse, line’).
Adjectives of material are now mostly coined with this suffix
(cf. -in, below): абрешимй	‘silk(en)’, куртаи пахтагй
 Lk‘cotton shirt’ (paxta ‘cotton’), карбосй
‘(of) canvas’.
This suffix is of course homomorphous with the Quality Noun
formative -7 (5.2). However, derivation is generally transparent,
and syntactic distribution of the two is usually complementary, so
that ambiguity is rare. For exclusively adverbs in -7, see 5.5.
-ин (j_i- forms adjectives of material: пуст-ин _i T ‘(made of)
hide, leather; pelt, fleece coat’ (pust ‘skin, hide’); охан-ин j_jJi_aI
‘(of) iron’; санг-ин j  < ...‘(of) stone’ (not ‘heavy’, as in SP;
this is вазн-ин jj lit. ‘weighty’ or гарон jlj-S). After the
vowel -a, this takes the form -gin-, пул-и тахта-гин 4 k Jj
‘wooden (plank) bridge’ (taxta ‘wooden board, plank’). See also
-7, above.
-ина < '» — coins various relative adjectives: пурсупоси баъдина
<i «  o.,l  _ j ‘subsequent inquiries’ (ba'd ‘after’; forpurs-u-
pos cf. 5.11); мехмони мардина	jl n ‘male visitor’;
мис-ина «'- " ‘(of) copper’, пашм-ина n ‘cashmere’
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CHAPTER FIVE
(materials; cf. -in, -T). From numerical expressions, it makes a
relative or evaluative adjective: хдфтаина  I <i " aft ‘weekly’
(hafta ‘week’), панцсумина <_i_.____»j ‘worth five rubles’
(сум a monetary unit of the Bukhara emirate, later equated
with the Russian ruble).
-нгй (after a consonant, -angT): a dialect and colloquial variation
of the -gi variant of the suffix -i; forms a few relative adjectives of
time and place: динангй	‘yesterday’s’ (dina ‘yesterday’);
к;адим-ангй	Void, former, ancient’; болонгй
‘upper’ (adv. bolo ‘above, up’). Such adjectives may optionally
precede the noun modified: дина-нгй рузнома
j ‘yesterday’s paper’ (4.1; for the intrusive n see 1.8).
-HOK tSLi- ‘possessing the quality of —’, a very productive suffix,
generating adjectives or nouns, especially from intangibles (not
necessarily abstracts): характернок j S <j-A ‘characteristic,
specific’ (xarakter ‘character(istic)’; буйнок	‘smelly,
odorous’, caдонок ^Lslj__________ua ‘vowel’ (sado ‘sound, voice’);
фоиданок	___i‘useful, advantageous’ (foida ‘benefit’),
самаранок	j__Ji ‘fruitful, profitable’ {samara ‘fruit’ [meta-
phorical]), зарарнок	‘harmful, deleterious’, даромад-
нок jj ‘income-producing, profitable’.
It may also be applied to tangible and alienable characteristics:
ош-и чурготнок <£L>ejl—cfjzi ‘pilaf with yoghurt’, зан-и
паранцинок	jj‘the woman wearing a veil’.
-она <C>I- (after a vowel, -gona): ‘characteristic of —’; from nouns,
and adjectives applied to humans, it forms adjectives applied to
non-humans, also used as adverbs: ок,илона «Ciyi—aLc. ‘intelligent,
sensible’, (ок,ил JJal_______c. ‘intelligent’, of a person; kor-i oqilona
‘sensible action’); бачагона <c.l < ? > ‘children’s, childhood —;
childlike, childish’ (baca ‘child’); харобкории чингизиёна
«LjLj X 'i-a. IjJ. ‘Chingiz-like devastation’ (Cingiz ‘Genghis
Khan’, with adjectival -i). This redundant element perhaps reflects
the influence of more frequent formations from nisbat (affiliative)
names, such as фирдавси-ёна васфи далерон баён кунам
j I j 1	i j <i ~.l _  ‘Firdawsi-wise, I sing the
deeds of heroes’ (i.e., in epic style; an adverb). This suffix is
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
429
essentially the same as -ona which forms noun-adjectives such as
мохона «QLbLa ‘monthly; salary’ (see 5.3); and cf. adverbial -ona
(5.5).
-чак . is added to the verbal adjective in -on (which expresses a
current state: гуён jL‘talking, saying’; 3.39) to form adject-
ives of characteristic, tendency, or habit: мард-и хандончак jj_a
 <	‘.l i < ‘man who is always laughing; a smiler’, кудак-и
гирёнчак  < у j‘whining child, crybaby’.
Adjectival suffixes beginning with a consonant may be “gapped,” i.e.,
the first instance of the suffix in two coordinated adjectives may be
omitted: сухани у фасохат ва балогатнок буд j	jl
cShuu-cyU ‘his speech was pure and eloquent’ (j.e.,fasohat-nok
va balogat-nok\ cf. 4.5).
5.5 Suffixes (4): Other Adjective and Adverb Formatives
The following adjective-forming suffixes are no longer, or only
marginally, productive.
-ам added to Stem I of a few verbs (all ending in -or) denotes the
capacity to act or be acted upon in the manner of the verb: одамхои
дор-ам ‘rich people, the “haves’” (dostan! dor- ‘to have, possess’);
оханги фор-ам ^*jl_________a -< ‘delightful melody’ (foridan ‘to
please, delight, suit’); заминхои кор-ам jLa	j ‘arable
fields, cultivated lands’ (kostan/ kor- ‘to sow, plant’).
-вор jlj- ‘like, characteristic of’: гургвор jlJS ‘wolflike, lupine’,
бузургвор j IjJ_i ‘majestic’ (buzurg ‘great’); цахиши гурба-
вор jl‘catlike spring’.
-гин j-xS-forms adjectives of emotion: хашм-гин j n ‘angry,
furious’; андухгин jxJ'sad’.
-гун oj-S- ‘like’ (cf. guna ‘sort, kind’): гулгун ‘rosy, pink’
(gul ‘rose’); дигаргун Jj-S‘different, changed’ (digar ‘oth-
er, else’; digargun kardan ‘to change’—see 5.18).
-(у)манд > ' "(j)- ‘possessed of, endowed with’: makes approbatory
adjectives (sometimes substantivized) from nouns: тануманд
»•. ‘tough, mighty’ (tan ‘body’); донишманд
‘learned, scholarly; scholar, scientist’ (donfs‘knowledge’; see 3.38).
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CHAPTER FIVE
An occasional modem coinage has expanded its scope: нашъаманд
дХо~i ‘drug addict’ (nas’a ‘intoxication, a “high”’).
-oco LuuT- (often written as two words in Perso-Arabic): ‘like, resem-
bling’: хамлаи бардосо L-Л	‘lightning-fast assault’.
-тарош (jiiyi-: Stem I tarosidan ‘to trim, fashion, sculpt’, denotes
the artificial display of a type or quality (the underlying object ;
cf. 5.9), ‘seeming, pretended, pseudo-’ (adj. and nouns): диндор-
тарош (jblj-j‘sanctimonious’ (din-dor ‘pious, righteous’
(cf. dor-, 5.9); пахлавон-тарош	jl щ ‘tough guy, macho’.
Adverbs. A few suffixes produce adverbs only; some others already
mentioned above give several words that are exclusively adverbial.
-	ак (cf. 5.2): colloquially, added to expressions of time, this
diminutive formative expresses the (surprisingly) short duration or
recency of an event: ду рузак пеш-и мо буд L_a ar, .  jj
j‘he stayed with us just/ barely two days’, дина-як/ дина-хак
омадед-ку!	—J ^1 <_~i u ‘you mean you came only
yesterday?!’.
-	Й (_5- : Adverbs in this ending may be derived from either the noun or
the adjective formative: пагохй	‘early (in the morning)’
(pagoh ‘morning, (to)morrow’), пинхонй a ~i । ‘secretly, sur-
reptitiously’ (pinhon ‘hidden’); мо Москва-ро серй тамошо
кардем I Л.1.„.а-3 j I n L/we saw our fill of
Moscow’ (ser ‘full, sated’; perhaps an abbreviation of a prepo-
sitional phrase such as to (ba) ser-i ‘to satiety’). For numerical
phrases, see 2.53 (3).
-нокй Li- produces adverbs of direction or location: пуштнокй
афтод J_________T. al ^1 ’iT .7. j ‘he fell backward/ on his back’ (past
‘back’); дарун-нокй	‘inside, inwardly’ (2.48).
-	она <3l- (see 5.4) forms adverbs freely from compound adjectives
and complex phrases: бехудона _________________4__j_i ‘in vain’ (behuda
‘unavailing’, also used adverbially); худбоварона <_jl jjLijj <
‘self-confidently’ (bovar ‘true; belief’); хунсардона «uLljj ’>
‘sanguinely’ (xun ‘blood’ + sard ‘cold’, already an adjective; 5.8);
бетакаллуфона <ljI________q I < ~ ‘informally, offhandedly’ (be
‘without’ + takalluf ‘ceremony, formality’, an adjective; 5.6); 6e-
шафадона 4 '.I a a ‘pitilessly, ruthlessly’ (be-safaqat ‘ruth-
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
431
less’, <be+ safaqat ‘pity, compassion’; the Ar. loanword has been
reduced to its stem to take the suffix). This suffix may be added to
an already suffixed adjective: шарм-гин-она <L>I n ‘shyly,
shamefacedly’ (sarm ‘modesty, shame’), and to Stem I of compo-
site verbs: ахд-шиканона <Ql Л.лд r ‘perversely, treacherously’
(ahd sikastan ‘to break one’s promise’).
NOMINALS: PREFIXES AND COMPOUNDS
5.6 Prefixes
Productive nominal prefixes which form adjectives and related nouns
are mostly identical with prepositions; these form Determinative com-
pounds, the basic meaning of which is ‘being what is expressed by the
preposition-plus-base noun X’ (with-X, without-X, etc.). The nominal
prefixes tend to generate Possessive compounds, with the sense ‘having
the quality expressed by base noun Y-plus-modifier’ (‘having much Y,
having good Y’, etc.; see further, 5.8).
These compounds may be divided in two categories: those accom-
plished by direct juxtaposition, and those few where the prefix joins by
means of the izofat enclitic. Juxtaposed are:
6a—4_j and бо- l_i- ‘(endowed) with’: these two prefixes produce
synonymous variants of several common adjectives, though bo-
compounds are in the overall majority: боистеъдод jl,< * T ...I L
‘talented’ (iste’dod ‘talent’), босавод jlj—-Ь ‘literate’ (savod
‘literacy’), бовафо I________ЬjU ‘loyal, faithful’ fyafo ‘loyalty’); 6o-
/ба-одоб	L-j ‘courteous’ (pdob ‘manners’), бо-/
ба-адл Jo » <\ J» <•! . ‘intelligent’ (aql ‘intellect’); ба-/ бо-маза
bj-aL Vj-A-ftasty, delicious; tasteful, witty’ (maza ‘taste’).
бе- ‘without’ (forms some antonyms of bo- compounds): бетартиб
.	~ j ‘disorderly, rowdy’ (tartib ‘orderliness]’), бемадал
J	 ‘untimely, inappropriate, premature; [colloq.] early’
(mahal ‘place’); бемаза --------о ‘tasteless, insipid, boring’;
бебориш (ji jl_>‘without rain, dry, fine’ (of day, weather;
boridan ‘to rain’); беист ... ‘continuous, non-stop’ (also
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CHAPTER FIVE
adverbially; Stem I of istodan ‘to stop’).
кам- ‘little’ (in quantity); forms Possessive compounds, sometimes
the antonym of ser-: камзур ‘weak’ (zwr ‘strength’), камгап
‘taciturn’ (gap ‘speech’), камодам камахрлй
‘sparsely populated, small’ (of a settlement; odam ‘person’,
ahoti ‘population’); кам-ахамият _________________a_al ‘unimportant,
insignificant’ (ahamiyat ‘importance’); камбудй j j ‘scarci-
ty, lack’ (bud ‘existence’, conversion of Stem II budan ‘to be’;
quality noun, with -i nominal suffix only; cf. 5.9, Stem I activity
nouns).
но—L> ‘not, un-’, added to substantives and verb stems, produces
negative adjectives and adverbs (Determinative). This prefix is in
theory indefinitely productive; it may negate most adjectives,
including the suffix-formed adjectives listed above, but is not usually
prefixed to an adjective already formed with a prefix (except for
ham--. но-хамвор jlaL ‘uneven’). Straightforward examples
are: ноором f I jTL ‘unquiet, uneasy’, нотамом ^>1__________incom-
plete’, номавч,уд jj—a.j—gL> ‘nonexistent’ (mavjud ‘existing,
extant’). With verbal Stem 1,нодон ‘ignorant, ignoramus’ (donistan
‘to know’; the antonym is доно Ulj, see 3.39), носоз Jl________
‘discordant, disordered, unsuited’ (soxtan ‘to make; fit, suit’); with
Stem II: нобуд (шудан/ кардан) (jjj_S\	a‘extinct;
to disappear, perish/ annihilate, eliminate’ (budan ‘to be’); (6a)
hoxoct cj-^.1 jAL	‘unexpectedly, suddenly’ (adv. only).
Participles (Present, Future, Past Participle I) may be negated
with no- unless they retain verbal force (see 3.40): нокушода
ьа! u/L ‘unopened’, норасида ...^1 ' ‘unripe, immature’; ho-
хонда 6a_slj_____i. L> ‘illiterate’ (Active voice, ‘not having read’,
fromxont/an ‘to read’), ‘uninvited’ (Passive voice, different sense:
xondan ‘to call, summon’). Complex and Composite participles
are normally negated with na-: чуйчаи хушк на-шуда %
6j.n~i. < л A ‘the channel that had not dried up’.
A few но—U adjectives formed on simple nouns (mainly on
concrete nouns) are Determinative (‘not being what is expressed
by the noun’): номард ‘unmanly, cowardly’ (mard ‘man’).
More are of the Possessive type (‘not having the quality expressed
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
433
by the noun’): ноумед j j «I L ‘desperate, despairing, pessimistic’
(timed ‘hope’), нодад ‘unjust, unfair’ (haq(q) ‘right, truth’),
ноулфат <z., a 11 (—S ‘unsociable, uncivil’ (ulfat ‘sociability,
friendliness’), ноилоч, ‘of necessity’ (iloj ‘remedy’, adv.).
Negated compound adjectives (esp. Arabicate coinages) and
their derivatives tend to have variants and to be less meticulous in
distinguishing Possessive and Determinative types, e.g.: ho-
мувофидй	—alj—oh or номувофидат cj-S alj oU or ho-
мувофидатй " 5________alj__ol_j ‘disagreement, contrariety, refusal’
(muvofiq ‘in agreement, favorable’); норизо I .и jl_j огнорозй
jLl ‘dissatisfied, displeased’, норизой ^1 .bj l_L or ho-
ризогй jb or норозигй .aljL ‘dissatisfaction, dis-
pleasure’ (rizo ‘satisfaction, acceptance; rozi ‘satisfied, pleased’),
nyp—‘full of’ (more literary than ser, q.v.): пурводима <i..n.al
‘dreadful, terrifying’ (yohima ‘dread’); пургулгула
‘booming, resounding’ (gn/gula ‘roar’; also figurative, шудрати
пургулгула 41»1 r lxjл; Л. ‘resounding fame’).
cep- -j j ‘full, sated with’ (a peculiarly Tajik prefix; cf.pur): серкор
jLSj _i ..u, ‘busy,’ (of a person; kor ‘work’), серодам j _>
‘crowded, populous, busy’ (of a place; odam ‘person’); сермасраф
_jj n j j ц. ‘frequently used, in demand, popular’ (masraf'con-
sumption, utilization’; серфарзанд j j  ‘who has many
children, with a large family’ (farzand ‘child, offspring’).
содиб— ^1 ‘possessor of’ (Ar.): originally the head noun of an
izofat (cf. the prepositions below, and Mute izofat phrases, 5.10)
and still so used in ad hoc NPs (see 2.15). It has dropped the izofat
enclitic and forms some fifty (literary) compound nouns and
adjectives describing a person or thing distinguished by a relation
to the modifier: содиб-хона	‘householder, landlord’
(xona ‘house’), содиб-мансаб л ‘man of rank, offic-
er’ (mansab ‘rank, position’), содиб-фаросат
‘perspicacious, shrewd’ (farosat ‘perspicacity’); (парранда-и)
содиб-чангол Jl <	(bj_ij-j) ‘raptor, (bird) of prey’
(‘possessor of talon|s]’).
to—Ls ‘up to, until’ (prefixed to a ready-formed adjective, normally
one with the relative -t): томактабй ‘pre-school’ (maktab ‘school’);
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CHAPTER FIVE
тоиндилобй U ‘pre-revolutionary’ (inqilob ‘revolution’).
This use of ta is unknown in SP, and was perhaps suggested by
identical Russian use of do- ‘up to, until’; cf. 5.26.
худ- —jj-S. ‘self, auto-’ (Determinative; see 2.32): худкор jLSjL
‘automatic’ (kor ‘work’), худсар j-L. ‘wilful, obstinate’ (sar
‘head’); худомуз	‘teach-yourself (book, course)’(Stem
I of omuxtan ‘to learn, teach’); худпараст jjjjA ‘conceited,
narcissist(ic)’ (Stem I of parastidan ‘to worship’). A number of
xud- compounds are of the Composite verb agentive type (5.18);
худтандидкунй	a ‘self-criticism’ (activity noun,
from the Composite verb tanqidkardan ‘to criticize’; see -7, 5.2).
xyin- -Jb‘good, fine’ (as a combining and idiomatic form, rather
than a free adjective): хушгап < jL. ‘well-spoken, eloquent’
(gap ‘speech’); хушманзар j L « j < ‘picturesque’ (manzar
‘view’). In a coordinate phrase of two xus- adjectives, the second
occurrence may be elided (хушбод-у даво Ij_a> j jU,_pj < ‘of
fresh breezes and |fresh] air; salubrious’, 2.40).
дам—‘together, co-’ (Possessive), a particle connoting sharing,
reciprocity or cooperation (see 2.31, 2.47): дамрод *lj - *
‘companion, fellow-traveler’ (roh ‘road, journey’; also in a prepo-
sitional phrase, ‘with’: 2.21); дамдевор jland дамсоя
tjl ul ‘neighbor’ (devor ‘wall’, soya ‘shade’); дамоданг
, 'i &T ‘harmonious, in tune’ (ohang ‘melody’); дамшадр(й)
(l^)j a " n в* ‘fellow townsman’ (sahr ‘town, city’; with variant
addition of adjectival -i, as in SP).
шод—a Li ‘king’, juxtaposed as an augmentative modifier, denotes a
large or important variety of the base noun: шодкоса <i .-I<a>l a
‘large two-handled cup’ (kosa ‘cup’), шодрод al‘highway’
(roh ‘road’), шодкор jKaLL. ‘masterpiece’ (kor ‘work’).
Another augmentative, no longer productive, is xap j___L (not
the homonymous noun xar ‘ass, donkey’): харчанг . < jL. ‘crab’
(cang ‘claw’), хармагас	‘bluefly, horsefly’ (magas
‘fly’), харгуш (jijL ‘hare’ (gus ‘ear’).
Prepositions with izofat. The following three are all Arabic loanwords,
and combine chiefly with ready-made adjectives; as ordinary pre-
positions, the first two may alternately combine with the preposition аз
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
435
j I (2.21). In Cyrillic these compounds are usually written as one word,
баъд-и- ‘after’ (temporal): баъдидангй 'i-s. j_*_> ‘postwar’
(jang ‘war’).
гайр-и- ‘other than, non-’ (cf. no-): гайрик,онунй(_5ДjJiLi j  A
‘illegal’ (qonun ‘law’), гайричашмдошт
‘unexpected’ (easin dostan ‘to expect’, Stem II).
ЗИДДИ- against, anti-, counter- : зиддихавой ^1	,> x ‘anti-
aircraft’ (havo ‘air’); зиддидинй	‘anti-religious’ {din
‘religion’). If used by itself, as a predicative adjective, zid(d) loses
gemination: у зид буд jjl ‘he was against (it)/ opposed’
(see 1.8).
Prepositional phrases may sometimes be seen as prefixes on adjectives:
хабардо-и пеш аз интихоб-й t J \ ~i‘>l JI -^1	 A ‘pre-
election news’ (cf. to- ‘pre-’; whereas to- designates a situation lasting
up to a terminus ad quem, pes az- pinpoints any position before an
event).
5.7	Compounds: Determinative
Compounding is most frequently effected by simple juxtaposition of
nominals, or a nominal and a verbal stem. Whereas in syntactic
constructs, such as the izofat, the modifier follows the head, in morpho-
logical compounds it normally precedes the head: Йшвдарди cap jjj
j_uuand сар-дард jjjj_uuboth mean ‘headache’ (respectively ‘pain of
the head’ and ‘head pain’). Such nominal compounds are of two kinds,
Determinative (illustrated in this section) and Possessive (see 5.8).
A Determinative (or endocentric) compound is of the same lexical
category as the head (a noun or adjective), and designates a variety of
the head referent: gulU-dard ‘sore throat’ (lit. ‘throat pain’ is a kind of
pain, like sar-dard ‘headache’. Examples: сар-мадола <JI___2__0J_____
‘leading article’ (sar ‘head, beginning’, maqola ‘essay, article’);
моднома <t_aLlALa ‘monthly (periodical)’ (mah ‘month’, noma ‘docu-
ment’); хар-бача j ; j-^- ‘donkey foal’ (xar ‘donkey’, baca ‘child,
young one’). They are usually nouns in primary function.
Certain frequent heads of compounds may be regarded as virtual
suffixes. The locative-formative nouns goh ‘place’ and xona ‘house,
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CHAPTER FIVE
building’ denote buildings or other compact sites characterized by the
modifier: хоб-гох a(_$_>!j Л. ‘dormitory’ (xob ‘sleep’), ош-хона
<2>l—=> iT ‘kitchen’ (os ‘cooked meal’); the adjective obod ‘settled,
cultivated, prosperous’ is a frequent ending for names of settlements
and towns, typically on a word of good omen or a personal name:
файзобод	(fayz ‘superabundance’), Ленинобод d j j .'.I
(the components are usually written separately in Perso-Arabic script).
Some compound nouns of this type are derived from pre-existing
Complex or Composite verbs, or underlying sentences. Their components
may correspond independently to lexical items, as in пеш-рафт
‘progress’ (pes ‘forward’ + raft ‘course,’ a conversion of Stem II of
raftan ‘to go’; ёд-дошт cu-iljjU ‘memorandum, note’ (yod-dostan
‘to remember’), but often the underlying idiom demands a subtler
analysis: ном-зад jj__ol_L ‘candidate, fiance(e)’ (nom ‘name’, zadan/
zan- ‘to strike; utter’), бод-овар(д)	‘windfall’ (‘brought by
the wind’, Stem I or II of ovardan)- даст-навис	...t
‘manuscript’ (adj. and noun, dast ‘hand’, i.e. ‘by hand’, + navis, Stem
I of navistan ‘to write’). Stem I product nouns such as the last two are
counterintuitive (since Stem I is usually active in voice, and generates
possessive compound adjectives—cf. 5.1, 5.8, 5.9).
5.8	Compounds: Possessive
Possessive (or exocentric) compounds generally involve an adjective
or adverb as the modifier; the resulting compound is an adjective or
type-noun referring to a third entity possessing, or characterized by,
the compound quality (e.g., ‘black-eyed’). These compounds are mostly
adjectives, though often substantivized: сиёх.-чашм p . u 61 _.‘black-
eyed’ (siyoh ‘black’ + casm ‘eye’), бад-бахт	‘unlucky’ (bad
‘bad’ + baxt ‘luck, fortune’; forms the adverb bad-baxt-ona ‘unfor-
tunately’, cf. 5.4); чор-по L-ijLa. ‘quadruped, (riding) animal’ (cor
‘four’ + po ‘foot, leg’); чор-поя «ujUjLa. ‘(four-legged) stool, cot,
charpoy ’ (differentiated from the former by addition of the metaphorizing
suffix -a; see 5.2).
Some heads of these compounds (e.g., sifat ‘character, quality’;
tabiat ‘nature’) occur frequently enough to count as suffixes: дузд-сифат
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
437
с.» ‘larcenous, thieving’ (‘[of the] character of a thief’), мард-
она-сифат cu-s___^a<c>hj__» ‘manly; courageously’ (on the adj.-adv.
mard-ona ‘male, masculine’ <mard ‘man’); хайвон-табиат jlj  -
e.i* y yln ‘brutish’ (hayvon ‘animal’). The Arabic loan-formative -maob
‘refuge, home’ (it has no separate lexical status) forms a few literary
compound adjectives: саодат-маоб ._>Lo ‘fortunate, felicitous’
(saodat ‘felicity, good fortune’).
Modifier and head are sometimes reversed (i.e., the head is preposed,
often when the head noun is one that combines frequently, such as a
part of the body): дил-сахт ‘cruel’ (dil ‘heart’ + saxt ‘hard’), сар-сахт
.-A ...j ... ‘unlucky, wretched’, сар-баланд	‘high; dignified,
proud’, муй-сафед j____□__i_________° ‘white-haired; old man, elder’.
Compounds using the head noun qad(d) ‘stature’ prepose this in Tajik:
кдд-баланд GI < й ‘tali’, дад-паст	‘short (in stature)’.
Reversal of components is also usual when the modifier is a participle:
ру-тофта ‘disobedient’ {rd ‘face’ + Past Participle of toftan ‘to turn
(away)’. However, the regularly-construed шикаста-пора 4 ~t  ,.S »
6 jL means ‘fragment’, lit. ‘broken-bit’ (a Determinative compound).
Participles used as verbs, i.e., part of an underlying sentence, are
Determinative (‘one who has done/ has been —’): ч,а\он-дида
6j_>j ‘widely-traveled, experienced’ (jahon ‘world’ [obj.J + didan/
bin- ‘to see’); шох-зода ___________Д ‘prince’ (soh ‘king’ [source] +
zodan ‘to be born’), кирм-хурда 6jjj j—£ ‘worm-eaten’ (kirtn
‘worm’ [subj.] +xurdan ‘to eat’).
5.9	Verb-Stem Agentives
In dast-navis ‘manuscript’ (5.7), the modifier is instrumental, and the
resulting compound a product noun (the underlying sentence being
‘s.o. wrote it by hand’). In the more common structure of this type, the
noun is the object, more rarely the subject or a (locative) adverb of the
underlying sentence, and the resulting compound is an agentive (a live
agent) or instrumentive (a tool or device) referencing the underlying
subject: китов-фуруш	‘bookseller’ (Stem I furuxtan ‘to
sell’), муза-дуз	о ‘cobbler’ (muza ‘boot’ + Stem I of duxtan
‘to sew’, i.e., ‘one who sews boots’); шахр-нишин J j Л. j-e-4>‘city-
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CHAPTER FIVE
dweller; urban’ ([dar] sahr ‘[in the] city’, locative; nisastan ‘to settle’);
пахта-чин ~ 4_i‘cotton-picker’ (cidan ‘to gather’), арад-чин
ij-ie- (3j-c‘skullcap’ (lit. ‘sweat-gatherer’, as protector of the turban);
борон-санч, gc \ (jljt—i ‘rain gauge’ (boron ‘rain’, sanjidan ‘to
measure’); (род-и) машина-гард «1 '_> л. „ (J j) ‘motor(able)
(road)’ (masina [later, tnc&in] ‘motor vehicle’, subject; gastan ‘to tour,
go about’).
This is an especially productive combination (as also in SP), which
may exploit Compound nouns and adjectives, and Complex and Com-
posite verbs: шаш-мадом-хон jl j	i . л. л. ‘singer of traditional
music’ (sas ‘six’, maqom ‘musical mode’, xondan ‘to recite, sing’);
дам-оданг-соз jl_^. < \ a>T‘coordinator’ (ham-, see 5.6; soxtan ‘to
make’); удда-бар-о T_>-j	$__c ‘responsible, reliable’ (az tihda bar-
omadan ‘to measure up to a task, shoulder a responsibility’); об-бар-дор
>T ‘absorbent’ (ob ‘water, liquid’, bar-dostan ‘to pick up, re-
move’); даст-пок-кун jk	‘hand towel, napkin’ (pok kardan
‘to [make] clean’).
Several of these Stems I occur frequently and with a consistent
semantic, so as to constitute virtual suffixes. Four of the most common
are:
-бахш tjT. 4 1- ‘bestowing, furnishing’ (baxsidan ‘to grant, bestow’;
forms adjectives only): файз-бахш	____a ‘beneficent;
abundant, profuse’ (fayz ‘superabundance’); натич,а-бахш бар-
омадан j a_oTj-j Ч *i > j ~‘> ‘to turn out successful(ly), give
(good) results’ (natija ‘result’).
-дон jlj- ‘knowing, skilled in’ (donistan ‘to know [how to]’; nouns
and agentives): дисоб-дон jIj.1 .ul. ‘mathematician; good at
reckoning’; забондон jlj jL□ j ‘polyglot’ (zabon ‘language’).
This should not be confused with the suffix -don ‘container’ (5.3).
-дор jIj- ‘holding; keeper’ (dostan ‘to have, hold, keep’; nouns and
adjectives): дисоб-дор jl' J ... ‘accountant’ (hisob ‘reckoning,
account’); замин-дор jlj ‘i_i______‘landowner’ (zamin ‘land); 06-
дор j ШТ ‘juicy; lustrous, brilliant’ (ob ‘water, liquid’).
-шинос o..l '« Л— ‘knowing, familiar with’ (sinoxtan ‘to know, be
acquainted with’): as in SP, forms agentives of (scholarly)
profession: забон-шинос	‘linguist’; мусиди-шинос
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
439
o5_i .„j-q ‘musician, musicologist’ (musiql ‘music’).
Stems I and (in one case) II of four verbs beginning with a vowel (alif)
have created an even more closely-defined class of virtual suffixes, all
forming instrumental adjectives:
-ангез J—‘provoking, inciting’ (Stem I, angextan, combines
with an underlying object): нафрат-ангез j ><'! ‘repug-
nant, detestable’ (nafrat ‘aversion, loathing’).
-овар jjl- ‘bringing’ (Stem I ovardan, with an underlying object):
хавф-овар	‘dreadful, perilous’ (xavf ‘fear, terror’).
-олуд jjJT- ‘soiled, impregnated (with)’ (Stem II, oludan ‘to pollute,
soil’): хоб-олуд jjJT «_> 1 j A. ‘sleepy, bleary’; хун-олуд _A.
jjJT ‘bloody, covered in gore’ (an underlying concomitant phrase,
like the next). This alone of the four may combine with a concrete
noun).
-омез j—□—oT- ‘mixed (with)’ (Stem I, omextan, intr.): масхара-/
тамасхур-омез j_j_j A ...	А. ц, /mocking, derisive’
(masxara, tamasxur ‘ridicule, mockery’); бо оданги рандиш-
омез 5—j—о!	-ч j 'i &T L‘in a hurt tone of voice, sounding
offended’ (ranjidan ‘to be offended’; for -is see 5.2). This is the
most productive of these quasi-suffixes.
Present participle in -anda. To form agentives or instrumentives
(either nouns or adjectives) from a Composite verb formed with the
semantically empty auxiliary kardan ‘to do’, when the underlying object
(or other argument) is not included, or from its intransitive correlative
Sudan ‘to become’, the Present Participle in -anda is used instead of
the simple Stem I (3.41). Thus даст-пок-кун j	... < ‘hand
towel, napkin’ (lit. ‘hand cleanser’, see above) includes the external
object, dost (cf. kitob-furiis ‘bookseller’), whereas the factitive *pok-kun
‘cleanser’ does not, and must be reconstructed as пок-кунанда XU
6j	(lit. ‘making clean’). The activity noun ‘cleansing, sanitation’,
however, would be formed as пок-кунй XL (see 5.10).
Examples: об-кунанда A ~X._.T ‘solvent’ (ob kardan ‘to dis-
solve’, lit. ‘make into water’; ob is an internal object, part of the
Compound verb); тасдид-кунанда ьл \ 'Xj-jj____uaS ‘confirmatory;
witness (to a document)’ (tasdiq kardan ‘to confirm, corroborate’);
бози-и дал-кунандна ь jA_X J-a. ^jL ‘decisive match’ (hal kardan
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CHAPTER FIVE
‘to (re)solve, decide’); дастомуз-кунанда ьл'гЛ	‘tamer,
trainer’ (dast-omiiz. ‘hand-reared, tame’; Stem I in a Passive sense, dast
adverbial, ‘by hand’; cf. dast-navis above); таслим-шаванда-до
La 6 jjл Зий ‘those surrendering, the capitulating (troops)’.
This construction holds often for other verb-forming auxiliaries
with a weak semantic: [аломати] фард-диданда [.r.i—___________с]
3 j-i ‘distinguishing [mark]’, since farq dodan and farq kardan
‘make a difference’ are virtual synonyms; but фармон-дех, о j_i
‘commander’ (dodan here bears its literal meaning, ‘to give’, hence
farmon ‘command’ is an external object).
Negation. Negative compounds originating in a verbal construction
place the negative prefix on the verbal component: гард-но-гузар
j	‘dustproof’ (lit., ‘dust not passing’ [intr.]; gard ‘dust’ is the
underlying subject), назар-но-гир j _i jliJi ‘unattractive’ (nazar
‘gaze’, the underlying object; giriftan ‘to seize’), хдд-но-шинос
^1 Л.1__l ‘ungrateful; ingrate’ (lit. ‘not acknowledging right’; haq
‘right’ is the underlying object), фаромуш-на-шаванда	j—»l j—s
a,c.j a	‘unforgettable’ (lit. ‘not being forgotten’); for the two prefix-
es, see 5.6 under no-).
5.10	Stem 1 Activity Nouns
A further stage of compounding this type adds the nominal suffix -i, to
designate the activity or product: забон-шинос-й ц ...I	'.I—.5
‘linguistics’ (z.abon-sinos ‘linguist’, see above); ком-ёб-й ^->1 _ -«LS
‘success, achievement’ (kom ‘desire’, yoftan ‘to find, attain’)—from
the agentive komyob ‘successful’, which indeed exists. By a process of
“leapfrogging,” i.e., bypassing the formation of a plausible agentive
(cf. -garl, 5.2), some activity and product nouns are coined directly on
Stem I: боз-дорй cSjlajL_> ‘detention, arrest’ (boz-dostan ‘to hold
back, detain’; there is no agentive *boz-dor). Occasionally the VP or
Composite verb itself is not a plausible source of an activity noun (cf.
roh-bari, 5.19).
With this, copywriters in the heyday of MLT generated neologisms
of almost Russian length and complexity, a development that was
encouraged in the Soviet period; e.g., маблаг-чудо-кун-и j_L_i--
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
441
‘appropriation, allocation, disbursement of funds’ (‘sum-
5ерага1е-так ^’);ба-фирк;а-дар-о-й	«_aj_a <u ‘factionaliz-
ation’ (prepositional phrase ha firqa ‘(in)to a faction’ + dar-omadan
‘to enter’); автомобиль-кор-карда-бар-ор-й oj_>!_£ J_i_il_aLSjl
jTj_j‘automobile production’ (‘auto-work-done-out-bring-ing’; the
base verb is bar-ovardan ‘to produce’, conjoined with kor kardan ‘to
work’).
Activity nouns may often be reverbalized with the addition of the
“dummy” auxiliary kardan-. лижа-ронй кардан jj6 j_d ‘to
ski’ (liza < Rus. лыжа ‘ski’, rondan ‘to drive’; see 5.18).
Prepositions or prepositional phrases may begin some “leapfrogged”
compounds, e.g., a group meaning ‘re-’ (though not sufficiently stand-
ardized to count as prefixes): боз-созй _____uujU ‘reconstruction,
perestroika’ (boz ‘back, again’ + soxtan ‘to construct’); аз-дигар-созй
‘reorganization, rebuilding’ (cf. digar kardan ‘to make
different, change’); and a juxtaposition of two such phrases, аз-нав-
бар-по-кунй	Lij_i	‘reconstitution, restoration’ (bar po
kardan, lit. ‘to set on foot’; see az, 2.19, and cf. Prepositional phrases,
5.11).
When -i is suffixed to a participle in -anda to form an activity
noun, it takes the form -gi (1.8,2.53): бофандагй JL j-liU ‘weaving’.
Agentive compounds in -anda (5.9) do not normally form activity
nouns, since these would merely duplicate existing Stem I derivatives:
дал-кунанда	‘decisive, tie-breaking’, but дал-кунй
‘decision, resolution’, not *дал-кунандагй
5.11	Coordinates and Phrases
Coordinate (also called copulative) compounds, where two substantives
or verb stems are joined by addition of (usually) enclitic -u ‘and’ to the
first element, may be intangible entities or abstracts with complex
semantics (“Concept nouns”), activity nouns, or adjectives. Structurally,
the elements are of equal status. The second component is written
separately, except (often) in the case of two verb stems (Activity nouns).
Concept nouns: об-у даво Iз,_,Т ‘weather’ (lit. ‘water-and-air’),
хеш-у табор jL т Ъ. । A. ‘kith and kin, (blood) relatives, family’
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CHAPTER FIVE
(xes and tabor are synonyms for ‘family, etc.’; neither is now used
alone); хона-ву ч,ой j GL ‘shelter, a roof over one’s head;
home, family’ (xona ‘house’, joy ‘place’); афт-у андом j .-c»l
I xj I ‘looks, appearance’ (aft ‘aspect’, andom ‘limb, figure’), кад-у
домат j xJ ‘height and build’ (qad and qomat are syno-
nyms for ‘height, stature’); e.g., вай дар афту андом/ даду
домат мисли шумо будааст x^=L_a jx-S\ j»lxll j схЫ
sjjj La_i ‘he looks just like you (in height and build)’
(i.e., ‘so they say’ or ‘so I discovered’, the Non-Witnessed Perfect
of budan', 3.21).
Activity nouns: These may combine verb Stems I or II in any way, or a
noun (usually an Arabic action noun which is part of a Composite
verb) and a verb stem, and often themselves form Composite verbs
(q.v., 5.18). They are usually written as one word in Cyrillic; in
Perso-Arabic script they are often written without -u j, and hence
joined (characters permitting) into a single word; pronunciation of
medial ~(v)u is unaffected:
Рафт-у-о(й) ((j^Tjuu-sj, рав-у ой	рафт-у-омад
j—of jej-ij, омад-у-рафт cxi_> (j) J—»I ‘(social, commercial)
intercourse, visit(ing), traffic’ (various combinations of Stems I
and II of verbs raftan ‘to go’, omadan ‘to come’); сайр-у-гашт
.xuj. S (j) Ц1 ‘stroll, tour’ (sayr ‘recreational walk, stroll’, a
noun, + Stem II of gastan! gard- ‘to turn, go round, stroll’); nypc-
y-пос	‘inquiry’ (Stem I pursidan ‘to ask’ + pos
‘attention’), гун-у-чин(-и себ) ^,) j ‘(apple) pick-
ing, gathering, harvest’ (gun ‘collecting’ [5.16] + Stem I cidan ‘to
pick’); дод-у-гирифт (кардан) (jjj_£) xij_S j jIj ‘(to) trade,
exchange’ (Stem II, dodan ‘to give’, giriftan ‘to take’); харид-у-
фуруш (ji, jj-sx_p- ‘trade, commerce’ (Stem II xaridan ‘to buy’
+ Stem Ifuruxtan ‘to sell’); кофт-у-ков jIS'i a К ‘search, inquiry,
investigation’ (koftan ‘to dig’, Stems II and I), — карда ёфтан
- ‘to discover, unearth’ (Conjunct verb, ‘to dig-and-
find’;yoftan ‘to find’).
Occasionally the constituents are joined without -u: даро баро/
даробаро кардан/ доштан	Jjj-S 1^1 _>j‘to go to and
fro/ back and forth/ in and out, bustle about’ (Stem I, Complex
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
443
verbsdaromadan ‘to enter’, bar-omadan ‘to exit’).
Adjectives and adverbs: The simple adjectives joined by -u may be
either synonymous or complementary; the combination usually
has an intensive function: дохил-у нодон jljCi j ‘dead
ignorant’ (synonyms),дур-у-дароз Jl jjjj ‘lengthy’ {dur ‘far’,
daroz ‘long’), сабз-у-хуррам 3 J. .> ‘delightful, idyllic’
(lit. ‘green and pleasant’; of land, place). See also Quasi-coordinates,
below.
Prefixes may also be added to coordinated nouns to form adjectives
(cf. 5.6): бе-чиз-у-чора ь	‘indigent, helpless’ (‘without
thing[sj-and-recourse’),сер-чиз-у-чора а _>1=»jj;-» j_   ‘well-to-do,
affluent’ (‘sated with —’).
Prepositional phrases: These constitute Possessive compounds (cf.
5.8, and under Reduplication, 5.12): хона-бар-душ jjijj ________i.
‘nomadic, vagrant’ (‘whose house is on his back’); хона-бар-бод
jU j_>	___a. ‘homeless, indigent’ (‘whose house is [gone] upon the
wind’, cf. bar bod raftan ‘to be lost, wasted; perish’). In the adverbial
compound cap-o-no Ulj_‘entirely, completely’ (lit. ‘head-to-foot’)
the coordinating syllable -o- replaces what is conceptually the preposition
to ‘up to, as far as’ (cf. sarosar, 5.12). This type of compound may
also form a quality noun: хонабардуш-й jJj-j «ilLA ‘nomadism,
vagrancy, a wanderer’s life’, or be made into a composite verb:
по-бар-40 мондан jjjJil—o Lj.j_jLi ‘to get stuck, be left in the lurch;
weaken, fail’ (‘be left foot-on-place’).
Izofat-compounds: Certain izofat NPs, both Nominal and Adjectival,
occur in stock phrases, so that they acquire the status of lexical nouns
(demonstrated by their having plural affixes at the end of the phrase,
not after the head noun). Some of those in which both components are
etymologically Arabic originate in Arabic collocations, e.g., арзи хол
JI___a. _____c ‘petition’ (‘presentation of situation’, pl. arzi hol-ho),
тардумаи хол JL». k. д-а.‘biography’ (‘interpretation of situation’).
As in the syntactic izofat NP, unlike most other compounds, the head
comes first and the modifier second; in Cyrillic, they are variously
written as one word or two: мардикор jL£ ‘(day) laborer’ {mard
‘man’, Лог ‘work’); гули лола JS ‘tulip’ {gul ‘flower’, Iola ‘lily,
tulip’; a number of flower names are compounded in this way).
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A productive head noun of this kind is ahl-i ‘people of’, which
designates human collectives characterized by the modifying noun:
ахл-и сила <_!_>1 c J-a I ‘family (members)’, адл-и санъат J_al
ил ‘artists, the art world’, адл-и бозор _>ljU JjJ ‘tradespeople,
the merchant class’, etc.
Some lexicalized izofat compounds omit the izofat enclitic, both in
speech and writing (Mute izofat, see 2.10): най-шакар j < л.
‘sugarcane; cane sugar’; мург-обй ^Lcj-a ‘duck’ (‘water bird’; obi
already has the adjectival suffix -i, see 5.4). In some of this type, the
same head noun is found in more than one such phrase and becomes
virtually a formative (typically in locatives, kinship terms and
professions): дой-намоз jl—^l—a/prayer rug’ (‘place of prayer’),
дой-хоб csL-a- ‘bed(ding)’ (‘place of sleep’); падар-арус jj_>
jj-c. ‘(husband’s) father-in-law’ (‘father-of-wife’), модар-шу jjLo
j-Д ‘(wife’s) mother-in-law’ (‘mother-of-husband’); мир-об  TJ , „
‘official in charge of (irrigation) water distribution’ (mir ‘commander’,
ob ‘water’), мир-охур ^S.1 ‘(head) groom’ (‘master of the stab-
le’). The formative sohib- ‘possessor’ is of this type (5.3; designated a
prefix because of its frequent occurrence).
Many compounds beginning with sar ‘head’ in its figurative sense
‘beginning/ top/ end of’ are semantically nominal izofat phrases: cap-
лавда a—=>.jJ j—‘title, heading, headline’ (lavha ‘board, writing
surface’), сар-сухан	‘preface, foreword’ (‘start-of-speech’),
сар-ангушт	‘fingertip’ (angust ‘finger’).
Note that these are structurally different from Determinative com-
pounds where the metaphor is ‘chief, prime, leading’, as in сарвазир
j-jjj ‘chief minister’, сармадола <dL5_o‘leading article’ (5.7,
5.26); from Possessive compounds of the type сарбаланд л '< I .j ...
‘lofty, proud, haughty’ (‘high-headed’; see 5.8); and from compounds
with a verb stem, as in сар-навишт	 ‘fate, destiny’ (an
underlying locative, ‘written on one’s head’; 5.9).
5.12	Reduplication and Expressives
There are several kinds of lexical reduplication in Tajik, usually of
adjectives and adverbs. Some have been mentioned in other sections,
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
445
such as juxtaposition for emphasis: тез-тез 3-LS ‘(very) rapidly’,
давон-давон jIjj jljd ‘at a run’ (2.46). Among the kinds listed
below, Echoic and Pre-echoic words are also common in Uzbek and
other Turkic dialects.
Quasi-coordinates: These adjectives and adverbs combine a copy with
the head word by means of a preposition or another syllable (usually
-о-), in the manner of a Coordinate compound (cf. 5.11). In the
case of adjectives, the effect is usually intensifying: гарм-о-гарм
_________SI__оj___S ‘extremely hot’ (garm ‘warm, hot’), фош-о-фош
‘manifest, blatant’ (fos ‘plain, evident’); дар-ба-дар jj
jj_i ‘homeless’ (‘door-to-door’), пай дар пай ‘continuous(ly)’
(pay ‘track, (in) pursuit, after’); навишта-хо-и нав ба нав
j_k_> jj ____________j____‘the newest/ latest writings’; cap-o-cap
j_^l ‘entirely, end-to-end’ (cf. saropo, 5.11); also in the sense
‘casually, incidentally’: sarosar omada raft Ъе stopped by, called
in passing’.
Some adverbs, notably гирд-о-гирд jj_S ‘all around, on
all sides’, давр-о-давр(-и) jjJjjj ‘all around, surrounding —’,
may also function as prepositions (both are intensives of the simple
adverbs/ prepositions, see 2.21).
Linked apparently by the archaic negative prefix ma- (3.5) is
the noun каш-ма-каш  struggle, scuffle, conflict’
(kasidan ‘to pull, tug’, Stem I); perhaps imitated from this is хел-
ма-хел хурок(хо) (Laj^l J j \ л J-xA ‘various/ all sorts of
food’ (xel ‘sort, kind’; preposed in the manner of a numerator, see
2.50).
Echoic words: Some common words may be repeated with a change
of initial consonant, producing a nonsense word; the whole implies
a collective generalization: ош-пош ‘food and fixings’ (os ‘cooked
food’); китоб-митоб ‘books and papers’ (kitob ‘book’); майда-
чуйда ‘odds and ends’ (mayda ‘small’); jiiyda, mitob, etc. have no
independent meanings. Sometimes the coordinating enclitic -u,
and/ or a final plural suffix, may be added: мева-ву чева j
aj -v ‘fruit and vegetables’; инчунин занон-у мардон, пир-у
чавонон, бача-ю кача-хо омаданд > j jUi3 Jj'» '»jl
aSj-of I *4 ? < j 4 ?	j j-- ‘men and women, young
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CHAPTER FIVE
and old, children and babes came too’.
Pre-echoic words: To enhance the quality expressed by an adjective
(particularly of color or size), an assonant syllable prefiguring the
first syllable of the adjective, but ending with a different (usually
labial) consonant, is preposed: каб-кабуд jj iS	‘bright blue/
green’ (kabud ‘blue, green’), наппа-нав 4_______‘brand new’
(see further, 2.44).
Expressives. A few characteristic endings, without being productive
suffixes, qualify a noun as expressing a kind of sound or tone of voice,
often associated with an attitude or emotion. The base words are
themselves onomatopoeic, often beginning with g and including r and
s (cf. Eng. growl, grumble, hiss). Such words (colloquial, and with
considerable variation as between endings), are used adverbially or as
a verb component:
-инг гинг-гинг (задан) j)	\ c ‘(to) hum, buzz,
murmur’; гиринг-гиринг  < ' j_c.  < ' j_c. ‘grumbling, whining;
querulous, petulant’; пичинг  < \ ‘caustic/ biting/ sarcastic
remark’; — задан/ зан- -_sj\ JjJ or паррондан	‘to
make/ let fly a caustic comment, say sarcastically’.
-oc ^1- and -ас Fyppoc (задан) (jjj) __________________i- ‘(to) roar,
growl’ (gurridan ‘ditto’); гиззас/ гиззос (задан)
‘(to) whistle’ (of wind, arrow, etc.); гингос u„l<r, and
гирингос ______________c., see ging-ging and giring-giring above;
пичиррос (задан) (jjj) j----------‘(to) whisper’; чингирос
(задан) (jjj)	‘(to) ring’.
VERBS: DERIVATION
5.13	Denominal, Factitive, and Transitivizing Verbs
Historically, a small number of Persian verbs have been formed by
suffixing -idan to the noun or nominal stem: ном-идан _ <J‘to
name’ (nom ‘name’), дузд-идан	‘to steal’ (duzd ‘thief’); the
noun stem thereby becomes Stem I of the verb, which is regular (3.2).
Many of these originate in borrowed Arabic action nouns: фахмидан
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
447
ju nd a ‘to understand’, талабидан jaj J к ‘to demand, seek’; some
are found in Tajik that are not in SP, such as харосидан (аз -)
(- 51) jj___j___u«lj_a ‘to fear, be afraid of’ (haros ‘fear’), фавтидан
j.i j_a ‘to pass away’ (favt ‘decease’). A few adjectives have also
been verbed in this way: хушк-идан j < _.<л, л ‘to dry’ (intr., from
xusk ‘dry’). This procedure is no longer very productive.
A currently productive means of forming transitive denominal and
deadjectival verbs is to suffix -on to the base, forming Stem I, and
-id-ап as the regular Stem II and Infinitive supplements: хушк-он-идан
j.t -.К л. < ‘to dry’ (xusk ‘dry’), гур-он-идан ja—jjl	‘to bury,
inter’ (giir ‘grave, tomb’), мукофот-он-идан j a-pLsLil^-o ‘to reward,
requite’ (mukofot ‘reward’), электр-он-идан ‘to electrify, power’
(elektr[iki\ ‘electric’). The derived sense is factitive, i.e., to produce
the result that the object is (in the cases illustrated) dry, buried, rewarded,
or electric-powered. The base words are, respectively, a Persian adject-
ive, a Persian noun, a borrowed Arabic noun, and a borrowed Russian
nominal stem (the closest Tajik lexeme here is elektriki ‘electric’, but
the stimulus probably came directly from Russian электрифицир-
овать ‘to electrify’, earlier copied from German). A similar example is
коллектив-онидан Ja-LJj-x'XjK ‘to collectivize’.
The same device is used to specify the transitive option in that
handful of Tajik verbs which may be either transitive or intransitive:
рехтан/ рез—J_jj\ J-S_a_ij‘to spill, pour’ (intr. or tr., e.g., чой ба
руи миз рехт .-.х ij j . „	‘the tea spilled onto the table’;
чойро дар истакон рехт с.»jj	! jJ I jcsLa. ‘he poured the
tea into the glass’. Ambiguities may be resolved by using rezondan,
which is exclusively transitive: чой руи миз резонд j_a_o (_$Ц.
‘he spilled (some) tea on the table’. Similarly, сухтан/ суз-
JSAj-Gu‘to bum’ (be on fire; set on fire); сузондан jaSl
‘to burn’ (set on fire). The base verbs rextan and siixtan are by default
intransitive. The verb омухтан/ омуз—Л\ j—‘to learn;
teach’ is by default transitive; омузон(и)дан Ja-pl	Jj-oT
‘to teach’ is found in Persian, but is not currently used in Tajik.
The formation of factitive and transitive verbs is closely related to
that of Causative verbs, and the suffix used is fundamentally the same.
There is, however, a strong tendency for factitives to end only in
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CHAPTER FIVE
-onidan, and transitivized verbs to end only in -ondarv, whereas
Causatives vacillate fairly freely between -ondan and -onidan (5.14).
5.14	Causative Verbs (1)
The full range of Causative verb formation is well established and
fully productive in Tajik. Both intransitive and transitive verbs may be
made causative by suffixation of -on to Stem I. Among common intran-
sitive verbs, sistan /sin- ‘to sit’ (intr.) gives sin-on-dan ‘to set, seat,
plant’ (trans.): ду дона каду шин-онд-ам	<11 j jj ‘I
planted two pumpkins’; rustan/ ru(y) ‘to grow’ (intr.) gives ruyondan
‘to grow’ (tr.): пахта меруяд	" \_i ‘cotton grows’, пахта
меруёнад ‘he grows cotton’; rastan! rah- ‘to escape, get away’ gives
рахондан JjILa j ‘to rescue, save’.
The infinitive of a causative verb may be formed by adding either
-dan or -idan\ in forms derived from Stem I this makes no difference,
but the past participles and Stem Il-derived tenses may have either
-ond- or -onid- as their stem ending. The shorter form -ond- is more
frequent, but there is nothing to stop any causative verb from appearing
in either or even both forms. Thus rasidan ‘to arrive, reach’ gives
rasondan, rasonidan ‘to convey, deliver, take, send, transmit, give,
effect’: хамин троллейбус шуморо ба шахр мерасонад
jlLuujjj-o j fl Д j I jl л u, j । I_^1 ‘this trolley bus will get you to
the city’; аз номи мо салом расонед л	U> j»Ujl ‘pass
on our greetings, give [them] our regards’; онхо хосили пахтаро аз
хар гектар ба сад центнер расонда-анд jl lj* "	 J-uaLa. LpT
jll ojILujj j •iT'i...	‘they boosted the cotton yield to
100 cwt. per hectare’; гирдбоди гайри-чашмдошт ба кулба-хо
хеле зарар расонид jj^=.	< La>«i d< <_>	jLj
xaILujj ‘the unexpected tornado caused great damage to the huts’.
The causative suffix is regularly applied to Complex and Compound
verbs: папирос дар ме-гиронад jllj j jj	_* J J ‘she lights
a cigarette’, ронанда мотор-и мошин-ро дар-гиронд 'Jj
jllj j. C jj I	jj 1 n ‘the driver started the vehicle[’s engine]’
(dargiriftan/ dargir- ‘to catch fire’; the causative dargirondan bears
the direct, primitive sense ‘to light, kindle, set on fire’, which is
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
449
metaphorically expanded to cover all cases of switching on an electrically
powered device); чингирос занондам	‘I rang (the
bell)’ (cingiros zadan! zan- ‘to ring’ [intr.]); вай чй тавр кард,
накард, курта-ашро аз китф-аш фуроваронд j__________$ jj U ->
xJ jjlJl I j ^1	< j‘somehow or other [‘however
he did or did not’], he got/ managed to get his shirt pulled down from
off his shoulder’ (a “double causative” from furovardan, which as a
derivative of ovardan ‘to bring’ is already a lexical causative (see
5.16); the implication is of indirect or unintentional causation).
An activity noun may readily be derived from a Causative (esp. as
a Composite verb with object nominal) by suffixing -i (5.2): дарахт-
шинонй _11	i‘tree-planting, afforestation’; гап-парронй
(_j.llxS ‘repartee, gibe, joshing’ (‘letting fly chat’; for parrondan
see also 5.15). These may often be expanded into the next stage of
verbal compounding by addition of the auxiliary kardan: гап-парронй
кардан (_jJil. ‘to trade gibes, banter’.
A causative verb may afford various interpretations in different
contexts. If the base verb is transitive and requires a human or animal
agent, the causative will mean ‘to cause s.o./s.t. to do this/ have this
done by someone else’; the object of the Causative verb remains the
same as that of the base verb, and the secondary object, the agent
prevailed upon to act, is introduced by the preposition ba: ин ош-ро
ба вай хуронед j 11 jj-i. I j jiT фи I ‘feed him/ get him to eat
this food’ (xiirdan ‘to eat’); дузондан флй1 jjj ‘to have (s.t.) sewn/
tailored (for one)’ {diixtan/ diiz- ‘to sew’): як курта ба Карим-усто
медузонам	I ~ ...I	4_>	‘I’ll have Karim the
tailor make me a shirt’; соатро ба усто ремонт кунонидам ш
' . ~.l	oUil—о j I ". ...I I j ‘I had the watch repaired by the watch-
maker’ (remont kardan ‘to repair’; for usto, see 5.22).
The causative auxiliary kunon(i)dan is so used only when its base
verb is transitive and denotes physical action or perception: ман кушиш
менамудам набудан-и акаам-ро ба онхо хис накунонам ф_о
> -.1 .<•. Lpu I j»l <u£l фаj	э—оД (_ju> a,tried not to
make them sense that my brother was not there’ (his(s) kardan ‘to feel,
sense’). From an intransitive verb, such as sayr kardan ‘to stroll, take a
walk’, or a more abstract verb, such as davom kardan ‘to go on,
450
CHAPTER FIVE
continue’ or bovar kardan ‘to believe’, the agent of the base verb
becomes the direct object of the Causative verb: уро дар 6of сайр
кунонидам f.u ~>L1$ j—_>	L>	Ijjl ‘I showed him around the
garden, took him for a stroll in the park’; Pa фи дон! —гуфт Сафар-
гулом сухани худро давом кунонда j»yl_Lj «~ -.» < - ' jl » ,
a jLLiS j*ljj Ijj‘“Comrades!” said Safarghulom, resuming
his speech’; ба ин гапхо... духтар-ро хам бовар кунонда уро
оромонидааст Ijjl	jjU Ijj » ...La, Л ч_
6j__Lil—J jT ‘he convinced the girl too with these arguments and
reassured her’ (orom ‘calm, tranquil’ > oromidan ‘to calm down, rest’).
5.15	Causative Verbs (2)
Some Causative verbs may have several quite different meanings, stem-
ming from the polysemy of the base verb. From хобидан jj__ulj-A
‘to sleep; go to bed, lie down’ comes хобондан jaLCI‘to put to
bed/ sleep; lay down (inanimate as well as animate object); throw (in
wrestling)’; from хондан	‘to read, study; recite, sing’ comes
xonondan: уро хононданд jjaSblj_____к Ijjl may mean ‘they asked
him to read, to recite, to sing; taught, educated him’, according to
context. From навиштан jj_>ip‘to write’, navisondan may mean ‘to
dictate to s.o.’ (have them write); more frequent is the idiom (номи)
худро нависондан Jj-Ll____^jLi Ijjj___A. (pb) ‘to subscribe, enroll,
register’ (‘have one’s name/ oneself written down’): худро ба руйхат
нависон(и)данд	f 4. jjj <-> I jJjA ‘they put themselves
on the list/ signed up’.
Common figurative or idiomatic uses of some Causative verbs are
as follows.
Damidan ‘to blow’ (wind) > дам-ондан jaLLoj ‘to inflate’.
Gardidan ‘to turn, revolve; become’ (intr.) > gardon(i)dan ‘to turn
(round, over, aside, away, into)’ (tr.): вараци китобро гардонед
I jjj'turn over the page’, аз ман руй гардонд
jl ‘she broke off (relations) with me’ (‘turned
her face from me’), дами бало-ро гардонданд I_>yL_>
aSj-jlj‘they averted disaster’ (‘turned [aside] the blade of...’);
ин киссаро аз тодикй ба англисй гардонида истодаам
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
451
fl ojI ~	a,' jo.„	jl Ijd -» a ‘I’m
translating this story from Tajik to English’.
Guzastan! guzar- ‘to pass’ (intr.) > guzaron(i)dan ‘to pass, spend’ a
space of time (direct object) at a place or in an activity: у шаб-ро
дар фикр-у хаёл гузаронид JI__________□___i. j jSLj lj, , л л|
jjjJJ ‘he spent the night in thought and speculation’.
Mondan ‘to stay, be left’ (intr.) > monondan ‘to put, place, keep,
leave’ (tr.): маро дар хайрат/ таадчуб монондед jj lj_________о
jjjSLiL-o <_\ * ~t\ ‘you amaze(d) /surprise(d) me’; this is
the transitive correlative of the idiom darhayrat! taajjub mondan
‘to be amazed/ surprised’ (lit. ‘be left in amazement, surprise’; the
default reading is that the amazing, etc., action [past tense] has
just occurred and the speaker is reporting the resulting state in
present time; see 3.12, 3.16,4.24, last paragraphs).
Boz mondan ‘to stay/ be left behind’ > boz monondan ‘to leave behind,
relegate, discontinue’: мадбур шудааст, ки писар-ашро хона-
дор карда аз хондан боз мононад	i jj «
jSLiLo JL j jSljA jl	jL<lsLA I j (ji,‘he was forced to
get his son married and take him out of school/ discontinue his
education’ (‘stop having him educated’).
Paridan ‘to fly’ (intr.) > паррондан jj-Llj-i ‘to fly, let fly, launch,
shoot’. Note the doubled r in Stem I as applied to the Causative,
as also in darrondan ‘to tear’ below (see 1.8).
Foridan ‘to please, be acceptable’ (intr.) > foron(i)dan (tr.) ‘to like,
approve of’; thus, either вай ба духтарон намефорид 4_i
л-jjl i	jlj ~i or духтарон вай-ро намефоронданд
jSjSl jLe I	jlj~"-L tmeans ‘the girls did not like him’.
A few causative-type derivatives of transitive verbs appear to be
redundant, and are commonly used with little modification of the mean-
ing of the basic verb, other than intensive: фиристондан j А>1 T
‘to send’ fromfiristodan ‘ditto’, даррондан jjSl_,j ‘to tear (up), tear
to pieces’, from daridan ‘ditto’ (for the doubled r, cf. parrondan above);
others represent a different specialization of the base verb: кашондан
‘to take away, remove, carry off’ (usually кашонда бар-
овардан jjjjf j_i ЛХ), cf. kasidan ‘to pull, draw, stretch’.
Causatives in dialect are sometimes made from Stem II: podavon
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CHAPTER FIVE
vay-a na-gurextond-as (= на-гурехтонда-аст	‘the
shepherd didn’t drive him away’ (gurextan! gurez- ‘to flee’).
Several common primitive verbs never form Causatives in this
way, since they already have causative correlatives either in a different
verb (lexical causatives) or in a causative form that is no longer
transparent. These are raftan! rav- ‘to go (away)’ (correlative, burdan!
bar- ‘to take (away)’, Causative, rondan ‘to drive’); omadan! o(y) ‘to
come’ (correl. ovardan! ofyajr- ‘to bring’); budan! bos- ‘to be’ and
Sudan! sav- ‘to become’ (correl. kardan! kun- ‘to make, render’); zistan!
zi- ‘to live’ (Causative zoidan ‘to give birth’). Another “irregular”
Causative is гузоштан /гузор—jl j_S\ л.I \ < ‘to put, place, let
(past), allow’ (4.25; from гузаштан/ гузар- -ji£\	‘to pass,
go through’; cf. the regular derivative, guzarondan, above).
VERBS: COMPOSITION
5.16	Complex Verbs (1)
A Complex verb (Taj. феъл-и сохта о " <1  Ja_i) is a simple verb
preceded by an adverbial particle, the Preverb; unlike other adverbs,
preverbs may not be separated from their host verb except by grammatical
prefixes (me-, bi-, na-) or the Future tense auxiliary xoh\am\. Tajik has
seven preverbs (discounting variants): бар j_>, дар jj, фур- (фар-,
etc.), фаро lj___s, боз jl-j, во Ij and гун j_c. They are no longer
productive, but are components of some common and important verbs.
Only faro and vo behave consistently like true preverbs (as in CP and
SP); boz also has a lexical status as an adjective and adverb; and gun
has no lexical existence outside its verb structures (one of which is
more like a Composite than a Complex verb). Nevertheless it is con-
venient to treat these versatile elements together.
As has been noted (3.10), the three most frequently occurring
preverbs have become inseparably attached to the stem of the most
common verbs of motion, so that verbal prefixes (na)me- precede forms
such as baroyad, daromad, and furovard instead of following bar-, etc.
In all other Complex verbs with these preverbs, e.g., bar-gastan ‘to
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
453
return’ and dar-giriftan ‘to catch fire’, the preverb remains separated
from the stem: бар на-ме-гаштанд	S j_j‘they did not
return’, оташ дар на-ме-гирад jj__j_jj ^i-Sfthe fire isn’t
catching’. The preverb gun- may either combine or stay separate (see
below). In either case, in Cyrillic the verb is usually written as one
word, and in Perso-Arabic the prefix, preverb, and stem + personal
suffix are generally written separately.
бар j_> ‘on, up, over’: with omadan] o- ‘to come’ and ovardan/ o(va)r-
‘to bring’ (see above): баромадан/ баро(й)- -(-j)Ij-j\ jj-aTja
‘to come/ go up, out; ascend, emerge’: аз ин кор хеч чиз
наме-барояд ja^^a! Jaa. jl£ «j-J jfnothing will come
of this [matter]’; баровардан/ барор—jTja\ JJjjTja ‘to bring
up/ out, produce’: он конунро наме-бароранд I j
ja^-aa they won’t pass that law’.
With other verbs: бар-ме-хостанд j\~i .»Lk ja ‘they arose’
(xostan! xez- ‘to rise, stand up’); дарахтро аз бех бар-на-канд
л •. ja j^AA JI I j.-.-Lj< ‘it did not uproot the tree’ (kandan ‘to
take/ break off, dig up’, bex ‘root’); ба хона-и худ бармегардад
jjj£ ja jjA LlL^a ‘he’ll return home’ (cf. bozgastan below);
сангхоро бар-медоштем j T ЛЬ ja IjI д < T <‘we picked
up the stones’ (dostan/ dor- ‘to have, hold’); in this verb the
preverb may also be treated as inseparable: намебардоштанд
с.-, Л1.»ja ^jAuS'they did not pick [it] up’.
дар jj ‘in’: with omadan/ o- ‘to come’ and ovardan/ o(va)r- ‘to
bring’ (see above): даромадан/ даро—I jj\ ja-of jj ‘to come/
go in, enter’: ту ба шакли xap ме-дарой j---------J
(_s_>Tjj(_s—о ‘you’ll turn into an ass’; даровардан/ дарор-
_jbJ\	‘to bring in, take in, import, introduce’: ман як
куза об ба дахлиз ме-дарорам J—jJ-aja	6 jj—и-®
jT jJGf-a I’И bring a pitcher of water into the lobby’.
With other verbs: az — dar-guzastanl -guzar- ‘to pass by, bypass,
renounce, overlook’: худо аз гунох-и ту дармегузарад jl IjA
jj	a Ilk ‘God will overlook/ forgive your sin’ (guzas't-
an ‘to pass’); dar-mondan ‘to be stuck, in a fix/ jam’: вай хамеша
дар-ме-монад j1La ^^a jj 4	। ajt> j ‘he’s always in some
trouble’ (mondan ‘to remain, be left’).
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CHAPTER FIVE
ФУРУ(Д) ‘below, down’: with omadan! o- ‘to come’ and ovard-
anl o(va)r- ‘to bring’ (see above), the preverb blends into the stem
and its final syllable is elided: фуромадан/ фуро- \ ,jj___Jj__Ь
-Ijj ‘to come/ go down(stairs), descend, alight, land’: аз автобус
ме-фуроям	jl jl ‘I’m getting off the bus’;
фуровардан/ фурор- -jlj_s\ dJjjlj-s ‘to bring down, lower,
unload’: нархх,оро ме-фуроранд jJ>jl IjLftQj-i ‘they will
bring down prices/ rates’. There are variants of these combining
forms, фаро—I jj (probably through confusion with the different
preverb/aro, q.v. below).
Other verbs combine with фуру regularly, i.e., the preverb
precedes verb and prefix, and is written separately: офтоб фуру
меравад j‘the sun is setting’ (raftan! rav- ‘to
go’); оташ ба зуди фуру менишинад jj___________a
j'l.i xu.'i ‘the fire will soon subside’ (nisastan! nisin- ‘to sit, settle’
[intr.]);даворо фуру наме-барад jjj	Ijljj‘she won’t
swallow the medicine’ (burdan! bar- ‘to take, carry’).
The variant фуруд jis more literary, and generally found
only with omadan: аз кух, фуруд омад j_«I jjj—s aj-S jl ‘he
descended from the mountain’. There is a nominal compound
фуруд-гох;/ фуруд-гох; oLSj‘airport, airfield’ (goh ‘place’,
cf. 5.7), which is a recent borrowing from SP.
фаро I j__a ‘forward, across’ (related to the noun-adverb faroz, 2.21);
written separately, this literary preverb is ordinarily found only
with giriftan! gir- ‘to take, seize’ in several idiomatic senses: район-
и саноатй дисми данубии шах;рро фаро ме-гирад jLjj
jjja Ijj I jjд  п ‘i-ч a (_rliLjAa ‘the industrial district
occupies/ covers/ encompasses the southern part of the city’; имруз
абрх;о руи осмонро capocap фаро гирифтанд 1_л j_J jjj______J
j-S lj_j j_^ilI j jl л ‘today clouds have totally
covered/ enveloped [the face of] the sky’.
The element faro- was a Middle Persian formative, and still
occurs in a number of Tajik nouns, adjectives and verbs; however,
it is no longer productive, nor sufficiently transparent to be
considered a prefix.
боз jl_> (1) ‘open’, (2) ‘back, again’ (cf. 2.47). The two meanings are
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
455
related, and boz is related to vo (q.v., below), but in combination
with particular host verbs these three preverbs produce different
idioms: (1)дарро боз кунед! и jl_> I jjj ‘open the door!’,
дар боз ме-шавад ajL> _>а ‘the door opens’; in this use, the
phrases are really Composite verbs, and the adjective boz is ac-
cordingly written separately even in Cyrillic. (2) bozdostan/-dor-
‘to stop, hold back, detain’: ронанда мошин-ро боздошт/ боз-
на-дошт л.1 с. jl_j\ с-i Jt.ljjL I j j j Л.1_o j‘the driver
stopped/ did not stop the car’ (as a Complex verb, the parts are
written as one word, even when a grammatical prefix intervenes;
cf. also bozdor-i, 5.10).
Other verbs incorporating this adverbial sense are боз мондан
jjJiLo jU (1) ‘to be left/ remain open’ (a literal verb phrase), (2)
‘to be left behind; stop (working)’ (see 3.25); бозмонда-и хурок
jj_____а. ь j_Ll_о jU ‘the leftovers’ (substantivized Participle I);
бозгуфтан _________s____5 3L_> ‘to repeat’ (guftan/ gii- ‘to say’),
бозхостан/-хох- -_alф"» ...Ij-A. jL> ‘to call back, summon,
demand’, and бозгаштан/ бозгард- jU\	jl_>‘to
go/ come back, return’ (for idioms and derivatives from these last
three, see 5.17).
Other verbs (esp. of motion) may be used in conjunction with
boz ‘back, again’ as an adverb, in which case it need not immediately
precede the verb but may occupy another slot in the VP: боз ба
Душанбе рафт j 4 j ' Л.jj jL ‘he went back/ returned to
Dushanbe’ (Time adverbial before Place, cf. 2.46).
во I j (1) ‘open’, (2) ‘back’. This near-synonym of boz (voz) is not
used independently as an adjective or adverb: vo kardan ‘to open’,
vo mondan ‘to be left/ remain open’, are synonyms of boz kardan
and boz mondan (1) above; vo-dostan/-dor- is similar to boz-dostan
‘to detain’; but вомондан jxjl_______о lj (2) ‘to be stuck/ in a fix/
helpless’ is closer in meaning to dar-mondan (q.v., above). Other
verbs: во-ме-рахад	Ij ‘he will get away’ (vastanl-rah-
‘to escape’); ба якдигар во-ме-хуранд lj j	*4?
jj ‘they encounter/ meet each other’ (ba — xurdan ‘to bump
against, collide with’; see 5.17).
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CHAPTER FIVE
Two common idioms use a Composite form (yo + Stem I
nominal):
Во-дор кардан ,jjj£ jblj ‘to compel, force, oblige, persuade’:
ин хабар уро водор кард, ки зуд баргашта ояд j » A
jut < Т Л. jjj <_S jj_£ j I al j I jjl ‘this news forced him to
return quickly’, and the intransitive correlative: водор шуд, ки
равад ajj j_i j blj ‘he was obliged to go’ (Stem I of vo-dost-
ari).
Во-намуд кардан Jjj-^ jj_<LJj‘to pretend, feign’: вай худ-ро
(тавр-е) вонамуд мекард, ки бо ман шинос нест ^j
ом_'~i (jxjL-Д, j-o L> «jj^^ jj_<Gl3	‘he pretended
not to know me’ (‘showed himself [such] that he is not acquainted...’;
Stem II of vo-namudan, not used, from namudan!name- ‘to show’).
With an adjective complement: худро бе-парво вонамуд мекард
jj^^ jj_a_jl j Ijjj^ IjjjjL‘he feigned indifference, pretended
to be unconcerned’.
The Past Participle I adjectiveво-баста .15 ‘tied, linked,
bound, connected’ (the simple verb vo-bastan is no longer used)
provides a useful prepositional phrase (with ba or b<r, see 2.21)
and a derived verb: ин ба ман вобаста нест *	.1 j
.о.м_i~i ‘this has nothing to do with me’, ин мактабро бо завод-и
мо вобаста карданд jSjj^ <i ~ Jj L» jjlj U Ij, * ^1
‘they linked/ twinned this school with our factory’.
гун j-c ‘gathering, harvest’ (not an independent nominal): in
combination with dostanJ-dor- ‘to have, hold’, гун-доштан
ib ‘to gather (up), pick up, collect, harvest’ may either com-
bine with the verb stem or remain separate: галла-ро гунмедоранд/
мегундоранд j_Sjb(j_x LS-& \j_ljb(_s—tl Ij4 l_c ‘they are
harvesting the grain’. With/cardan ~ sudan, the result гун кардан
jjj^ jx. ‘to collect, hoard, concentrate’ behaves like a Composite
verb, i.e., gun is separated from the inflected auxiliary and written
as a separate word: хеле пул гун мекард jj£ jx- Jje l_. 4.
‘he collected/ amassed a lot of money’, кушун-хо гун мешуданд
iVi л.	La JJ Л. a ‘the troops gathered/ massed/ were con-
centrated’.
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
457
5.17	Complex Verbs (2)
The structural difference between separable and inseparable Complex
verbs, or between Complex verbs and other VPs involving adverbial
particles, cannot generally be determined from the spelling (cf. 1.16).
Cyrillic in principle prefers to write verb and preverb/ preverbal nom-
inal as a single word, but this rule is not always followed: e.g.,
бознагардонидаш and боз нагардонидаш ‘he did not return it’. In
Perso-Arabic, each unit (preverb, prefix me-, verb stem + personal
ending) is usually written separately (i.e., at least with terminal forms
of the letters, if appropriate, though not necessarily with extra space
between non-linking letters); baro- and daro- are usually written with
alif-madda following the preverb, as two words: ajI	comes
out’,	‘let them not enter’; whereasfuro- is written with alif, as
one word:	‘I’ll get off’.
In dialect usage, other Complex and Composite verbs may occas-
ionally be treated as inseparable: me-xoravam ‘I’ll go to bed/ lie down’
(= хоб ме-равам	j_A; cf. xoraftan under Conjunct verbs,
5.20).
Other pre-verbal particles. Other adverbs (besides boz', see 5.16,
2.47) may function in juxtaposition to a simple verb in a way similar to
a preverb. The most common of these are пас ‘after, behind,
back’ and пеш i_> ‘before, in front, forward’; the resulting sense
does not usually go beyond a transparent combination of the components:
пас додан jjlj ‘to give back, return’ (tr.), пеш рафтан цЬ-л.
j‘to go forward, advance’. Less transparent is пеш кардан jLx
jjj____$ ‘to drive away/ out, expel’. In the case of пеш-и ин кор
гирифтанд »•*“ аjL£	‘this action was blocked/ prevent-
ed’ (‘they took |the] front of this action’) the particle functions as a
noun in izofat or a preposition (2.22) in a figurative sense.
Action and Activity nouns. Verbal nouns of action or activity may
be made from Complex verbs, and from verbs with other pre-verbal
particles, in several ways: as a conversion of Stem II, or with the
nominal suffix -7 added to Stem I (occasionally, Stem II). Thus вохурй
G5J3-AIj ‘(chance) meeting, encounter’; бозгашт .-.Л, ‘return’.
The converted Stem II фаровард jjjlj-i (offarovardan, sc. furovard-
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an) means ‘concluding/ conclusive part, the upshot, the essential’: дар
фаровард-и сухан/ ran	ajjl_>a ‘when all’s said and
done/ what it boils down to is...’
Many of these nouns may then be reverbalized by combining with
the dummy auxiliary kardan (or its literary synonym, namudan/
namo(y)-; see Composite verbs, 5.18). The resulting sense may be
virtually synonymous with the base verb, or a figurative extension of
the meaning. Thus бозхостан/-хох- -_alj-AjL/to call
back, summon, demand’ is more often seen in the form бозхост кардан
 !j_A jLi; from voxiirdan ‘to encounter, come across, meet
(by chance)’ are derived вохурдй ^a jj_____ad j (from Stem II) and bo-
хурй (Stem I) ‘meeting, greeting, welcome’: бо ман вохурдй
намуданд aS aj—^a3 L>‘they welcomed/ greeted me’; mo
даст дода бо якдигар вохурй кардем j 1S л l_> aala ca-cua I___________о
j‘we shook hands’ (‘giving hands we met each other’).
From verbs with preverbal particles are derived, e.g., пешрафт
(кардан) (jaj^)	_i._i ‘(to make) progress’; пасандоз (кардан)
(jjj___jlajl ‘savings; to save’ (pas andoxtan/-andoz- ‘to toss
back’, not used); пешгирй j_j_2 цЬ-ал ‘prevention’: аз омадан-аш
пешгирй карданд aSajl ‘they prevented his
coming, stopped him from coming’; пешгуй (кардан)
(<ja ‘(to) foretell, forecast, prophesy’ (pes guftan/ gu(y)- ‘to tell in
advance’).
Conjunct Participles. Common Complex verbs are frequently used
in the form of Conjunct Participles, which express their adverbial
meaning, followed by an explicit verb of motion in finite form. Thus
baromada and daromada express the directions ‘up/ out’ and ‘in(side)’
with a finite verb, which may even be omadan'. ба пеш-и мо баромада
давид a_ija ьа_Л j-j l_o __> ‘he ran up to us’, аз хона баромада
омаданд aSa_ОТ о a—olj-i	jl ‘they came out of the room’; дар
гор даромада рафтем f _> oa_<J jj jLc. jj ‘we entered the cave’.
Similarly, bargasta and bozgasta may connote a return or repetition:
китоб-ро бозгашта дод ala <1 5 Л. jL	‘he returned/ gave
back the book’ (dodan/ dih- ‘to give’); баргашта омад а_Л
or simply гашта омад a_J <1 ~ Л. ‘she came back, returned’ (see also
5.21).
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
459
The finite verb following a conjunct participle may take the form
of the verbal adjective-adverb in -on: баромада-равон jl jj t>j_Л j_j
‘going up/ out’ (see 3.39).
5.18 Composite Verbs (1)
The term Composite verbs (also called compound verbs; Taj. феъл-и
таркибй i _i*scovers a variety of verbal phrases, all compris-
ing a simple verb (the auxiliary) preceded by a basically nominal
component (other than a preverb or a participle). Together they form a
semantic and lexical unit. The simple verb may be a semantically
empty dummy, functioning as a carrier of the markers of person, tense,
and transitivity (as kardan! kun- ‘to do’), or a full lexical verb such as
girifian! gir- ‘to seize, grasp, take’ or yoftan! yob- ‘to find, receive’,
which contributes its meaning to the resulting sense of the Composite.
The nominal component may be a concrete noun, a noun of action,
quality, or instance, an adjective, adverb, or prepositional or coordinate
phrase.
Since Tajik has comparatively few Simple and Complex verbs, the
Composite verbs comprise the bulk and the most productive sector of
the verbal lexicon; they are transitive and intransitive, stative, factitive,
Causative, and participate in Conjunct verb constructions. Regardless
of whether the auxiliary is lexically transitive or intransitive, the whole
Composite verb can be externally transitive: [касе-ро] пешвоз
гирифтан j~ ° j	JI j .* [lj — <]‘to welcome, go out to meet
s.o.’; хатой худ-ро эътироф кард jI jj‘he
admitted his mistake’ (‘made-acknowledgment his mistake’); вай-ро
интизор шудам ^j-Л jl U~, ~,| I ‘I waited for him’ (‘became-wait
him’; Ar. action noun), and the alternative construction вайро мунтазир
шудам ^j-Л j-kJLL-o I JcgJ(‘became-a waiting him’; Ar. participle).
Denominal and Factitive verbs with kardan and Sudan. Just as the
synthetic factitive verb (e.g., xusk-onidan ‘to dry’, 5.2) suffixes a verb
stem to the adjective, so the analytic factitive provides the adjective
with a separate verb stem in the dummy auxiliary: хушк кардан
jj, < л, < ‘to dry’ (tr., ‘make dry’): либоси худро хушк кардам
aj^S . < л. A I ^LJ ‘I dried my clothes’. So, too, the inchoative
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or change-of-state verbs: the deadjectival xusk-idan is matched by the
intransitive correlative of kardan in хушк шудан ja-Д . < a, a ‘to dry’
(intr., ‘become dry’): либос-ам хушк шуд л а. , < a, a . ..I . I ‘my
clothes (have) dried’. In some cases the intransitive verb is semantically
primary, and the transitive factitive or causative is secondary and of
less frequent occurrence: савор in. .ji jlj____ш ‘to mount, board, get
on’ (a steed, vehicle); савор к. .jlj ... ‘to mount [intr.], load, put
on board’ (savor ‘riding’, etc.; see 2.41).
This stratagem has produced many more deadjectival and factitive
verbs than the synthetic: тайёр к. jl da ‘to prepare, make ready’,
тайёр ш. . JJ. ‘to be(come) ready/ prepared’; кутох к./ш. ‘to
shorten, abbreviate/ become short(er)/ brief’. When a nominal component
may be either a noun or an adjective (as, e.g., in the case of some
converted verb stems), the sense with kardan/ Sudan is generally
adjectival: банд к. a-k_i ‘to tie up [lit. or fig.], put away, imprison’.
The auxiliary kardan may be replaced by намудан /намо(й)-
Jalit. ‘to show’, and Sudan by гардидан ja_>ajaS ‘to
turn into, become’, in a more formal or literary context: уро хабе
намуданд aSao.. ? I jjl'they imprisoned him’, у хабе гардид
а.. । -ч jl ‘he was imprisoned’ (habs ‘detention, incarceration;
prison’).
Nouns, including loanwords, may be turned into Composite factit-
ives: ремонт к. _____________.j ‘to repair’ (Rus. remont ‘repair’; Ar.
таъмир j j » »~ ‘repair’ + kardan is also available; both the nominals
are action nouns); куфл (кулф) к. . (> 41 a) Jj_______5 ‘to lock, bolt’
(qufl, colloq. qulf ‘lock, bolt’; the underlying instrument); hence the
change of state: куфл мешавад аJid ‘it locks/ bolts’ (i.e., is/
can be closed with a lock or bolt), and the state: дар куфл аст Jii ja
cllxJ ‘the door is locked/ bolted’ (cf. xusk ast ‘it is dry’; for the explicit
Passive voice of Composite verbs, see 5.19).
Other composites with kardan ~ Sudan. Both concrete and abstract
nouns, simple and compound, generate denominal verbs of various
kinds: (ба кас-е) гуш к.	‘to listen (to s.o.)’ (gus
‘ear’); ноз к. jL*> ‘to flirt, tease’ (intr.; noz ‘hauteur, coquetry’);
лабханд к. . a '< A_____-J ‘to smile’ (lab ‘lip’ + Stem I xandidan ‘to
laugh’), лабрез ш. .Jb J_jj_____J ‘to overflow’ (lab ‘brim’ + Stem I
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
461
rextan/ rez- ‘to pour’); дигаргун к. . Jj-S j-Sj\ Jj-S‘to alter,
change’ (tr.) ~ дигаргун ш. .Jl	S jSuj ‘to change,
alter’ (intr.; digar ‘other, else’ + gun ‘like’, a non-productive suffix
cognate with guna ‘sort, type’; 5.5).
Persian action and activity nouns derived from simple, Complex
and other Composite verbs (3.39, 5.2, 5.17) are often reverbalized with
kardan and/ or Sudan', кушиш к. . (_,? Л.‘to strive, try’. Likewise
verb stems as nominals (esp. coordinates, 5.11) and some nouns of
quality or state: нест-у нобуд к./ ш. -(.уД • <-£ j __________л-L ‘to
liquidate, annihilate/ perish, be wiped out’ (Present and Past Negative
Stems of budan ‘to be’); дусту-ду к. . j > T m .a. ‘to seek, look for’
(tr.), кофтуков к. . j <xj_sL£ ‘to search (for), ferret out’, гуфту-
гуй .	° < ‘to converse, chat’; бардошт к. .j_i ‘to
hold out, be patient, wait’ (5.16): кам-е бардош(т) кун! _________£
!<3£ (jiiIjj_>	.^1'j_> ‘hold on a while, wait a bit’; водор к. jljlj
‘to persuade, force’ (5.17); зиндагй к. .	‘to live’ (zinda
‘alive’ +gi, see 5.2).
Some Composites of this kind are derived indirectly (cf. “leap-
frogging,” 5.10): рохбарй к. . £	___j_a!j ‘to lead’ (from roh-bar
‘leader’ is a regular agentive from roh burdan', however, this does not
exist as a “primitive” Composite verb, the neare st source being the
idiom ин pox, ба - ме-барад j____________«-j 61 j ‘this road leads
to — ’ (i.e., an inanimate agent ‘carries [one]...’).
Arabic action nouns (masdar) and instance nouns are an important
source (probably the most numerous source) of denominal Composite
verbs: рак,с к. . ‘to dance’ (a synthetic denominative радсидан
i-< . also exists); сабр к. j ‘to be patient, endure, wait’:
андак-е сабр кунед j ।’iS	‘wait a little’; вазифа-ашон-
po идро намуда-анд jJil aj3. «'i II lj	‘they have
carried out their duty’ (ijro ‘fulfillment, execution’); (ба -) тааддуб
к. . Д (-<_>) <to surprised (at —)’ (taajjub ‘surprise’);
истифода к./ш. .(ji \ o il»*  < ‘to use/ be used’ (istifoda ‘utiliza-
tion, use’; this may also combine with burdan/ bar- ‘to carry’). In
literary style the object is governed by the preposition az, but in colloquial
(and most written Tajik) it may take a direct object (unlike its counterpart
in SP): ин лугат-ро истифода мебарам ajl—a—^1 I jcJd
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‘I use this dictionaiy’; nominalized, it uses the izofat. истифода
намудан-и к;ироат-хона «AlAcuJj-S JJ3-0A »'!«' ...I‘making use of
the public reading-room’.
Arabic participles, as adjectives, primarily construe with Sudan'.
хеле мапнул шудам A Jj * j, n ‘I’m veiy busy’ (lit.,
‘became...’; see 4.24, last paragraph);ту-ро мунтазир мешавам Iу;
j h u ‘I’ll wait for you’.
Syntax. A semantically empty auxiliaiy may be omitted if the nominal
component is a verbal noun, especially in a subordinate construction:
шуруъ кард ба гиря (кардан) (‘she
began to weep’; and sometimes even in a main clause: дил-ам ба
себх,о кашол (шуд) (а_Д) JLiA ? J «_> ‘I had my eye on the
apples’ (‘my heart [was] drawn to...’; kasol sudan ‘to be drawn,
attracted’).
Note that the nominal component of a Composite verb does not
usually take any grammatical adjunct, such as a modifier, plural suffix
or the object marker-ro (for exceptions, see 5.19, Syntax). If it does, it
is no longer a Composite verb but a Verb Phrase, and the meaning
changes accordingly: кор мекунад jAA^ jLS ‘he/ she/ it works/ is
working’ (Composite verb); ин кор-ро мекунад jAS^ IjjLS
‘he/ she/ it does/ is doing this job, performing this task’ (VP).
5.19 Composite Verbs (2)
Besides the dummies kardan (namudan) and sudan (gardidari), the
following simple verbs are used to form Composite verbs: афтодан
jjlAil ‘to fall’, бурдан/ бар—j_i\ jjj_i ‘to carry, take’, гирифтан/
гир—j j	(jA—s‘to take, seize’, додан/ дих,- -_aj\ jjIj ‘to
give’, доштан/ дор—jIj\ ,>5—ih ‘to have’, ёфран/ ёб- JA_______sU
>L\ ‘to find’, задан/ зан- -_A j\ jjj ‘to strike’, кашидан/ каш-
--A»£\ ‘to draw, puli’, омадан/ о(й)—(_j)1\ Jj-Л ‘to come’,
овардан/ op- -jT\ JjjjT ‘to bring’, хурдан/ xyp-	jjjjA.
‘to eat; be struck, afflicted’.
Adjectival Composites in common use are нагз дидан Jajj j_____«А
- ~i _i Д ‘to like, approve’: инро нагз ме-бинам \_i jj_»A I jAJ
‘I like this’, similarly бад дидан j jjj д-i’to dislike’; and дуст доштан/
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
463
дор—jIj\	jj ‘to like, love’: вайро дуст ме-дорам/
наме-дорам	jj I>jj‘I like him/ don’t like
him’ (note that the prefix me- is used in the Present and Imperfect; see
3.8. This is “adjectival” in that dust is originally the complement, a
type noun: ‘I hold him as a friend’).
In two other verbal expressions involving dostan, the verb does not
take me< у Карим ном дорад jjh	jl ‘he is called Karim’
(‘has the name...’); фарк; дорад/ на-дорад jjlad \jjIj jj—i ‘there
is/ is no difference’ (‘it has...’; 3.8). In these, the verb is used in its
literal sense, ‘to have’, and the nouns are direct objects (3.8).
Zadan is often combined with a nominal of oral communication: харф
з. .j ‘to speak’ (/iar/‘word(s), utterance’), чег 3. . j . - ‘to
shout, call out, yell’, шилдирос/ шилдирас з. d л.\ a..lj d л,
.j ’to babble, mumble, mutter’, телефон з. . j j° I‘to phone’ (ba
kas-e ‘to s.o.’, indirect obj.).
Didan and xurdan tend to denote an unpleasant or harmful experience:
зарар дидан Jajj ‘to be damaged, come to harm’ (for xurdan
see below, under zadan). In combination with an activity noun, тайёрй
дидан Jxjj ‘to prepare, get ready’ (intr.), didan has the sense
‘try out, test’ that it shows in Conjunct verbs (5.20).
Choice of auxiliary. The same nominal component may take different
auxiliaries, resulting in different constructions and semantics: буй додан
jab Ljj-i ‘to smell, emit an odor’, буй кардан/ кашидан
A <\ ‘to smell, sniff (at)’, буй гирифтан jjsd‘to go bad,
spoil, rot’ (‘take [on] a smell’); cap к.	j ‘to begin’ (tr.; sar
sudan, intr.; see 4.25), cap додан jjIj	‘to let go, launch; divorce’
(sar ‘head, start’); к,арор кардан/ додан	jIj—S ‘to de-
cide’, к,арор гирифтан/ ёфтан	jl jd‘to come to rest,
subside, calm down’ (see also next paragraph).
Aspect The auxiliary chosen may correspond to the aspect, as between
kardan, giriftan or yoftan for inceptive action vs. dostan for the resulting
state: истик;омат/ ицомат к. .cu-oL3l \o-cl~G -J ‘to settle (down),
take up residence’, истик;омат/ ик;омат д. .j cu-d-dl da ...I ‘to
reside, stay, dwell, live’ (‘have residence’); дил-ам к,арор гирифт
oi-ij-S j I j_i jJj ‘I calmed down’ (‘my heart took rest’), шаб-у руз
к,арор надорам jl j_s Jjj j ‘day or night 1 have no rest’.
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CHAPTER FIVE
Correlative auxiliaries. Just as the dummies kardan and Sudan generate
transitive and intransitive correlatives, so certain semantically loaded
auxiliaries form Composite verbs in pairs. The intransitive correlatives
may be called “quasi-passives” (see 3.36).
Omadan ~ ovardan: гирд омадан ja—J jj_S ‘to gather round, con-
gregate’ (‘come round’) ~ гирд овардан jjjjT jj_S ‘to amass,
convene’ (‘bring round’).
Raftan~ burdan: аз байн рафтан jpjj J-xj jl‘to disappear, perish’
(‘go from among’) ~ аз байн бурдан j_> jl‘to eliminate’
(‘take...’; see 2.46, Place).
Aftodan~ giriftan: ба даст афтодан jjLLil ..........ч ; ‘to be captured,
acquired’ ~ ба даст гирифтан aj_£	 ,<  ‘to capture, ac-
quire’.
Zadan ~ xurdan: чуб задан jpj ‘to beat, cane’ ~ чуб хурдан
Jjjj—a. ‘to be beaten, caned’ {cub ‘wood, stick, cane’);
xurdan is in this context ‘to suffer, undergo’; cf. гам x. ‘to
grieve, be sad’, хунук x. , £ Л ’to catch cold’.
Dodan~ yoftan (an especially productive pair): ёд додан jala aL ‘to
teach’ (s.t., obj., to s.o.) ~ ёд гирифтан j ~ '°J < jL ‘to learn’
(yod ‘memory’); сарандом додан	^L-a.~>Ij_cu‘to carry out,
perform, complete’ — ёфтан jP-sL - ‘to be carried out, conclud-
ed’ (sar-anjom ‘culmination, conclusion’; also — kardan ~ Sudan).
Kardan may sometimes correlate with yoftan: таълиф к.
.	 o_. 1»~ ‘to compose, write’ — ёфтан j/kiL -‘to be compos-
ed, written’; and Sudan may replace the more literary yoftan: сихдт
ёфтан/ шудан Jj-i\ jA-bL .^‘to be cured, get well’ (sihat
‘health’).
Often the Simple and the Causative form of a verb produce such
correlatives: боло гирифтан jp ij_S	‘to rise, increase, grow,
peak’ (intr., despite the transitive auxiliary) ~ боло гирондан ^L.
jajlj-xS ‘to raise, bolster, strengthen, increase (tr.)’. If human agency
is necessary, the putative intransitive correlative is not used, but rather
a regular passive with Sudan: об cap дода шуд л-i j_^ <_> j ‘the
water was released [into the field]’ (not *saryoff).
Prepositional phrases. Some of these are transparent adverbial phrases:
cap-и ду зону нишастан jт ц. '> jJJj jj j_^‘to kneel’ (‘sit on
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
465
two knees’), and are thus in the same category as, e.g., руи замин
нишастан Ц1 .ii'i (>j_o j csjj’to sit on the floor’ or бирун рафтан
a j Jjj_j_>‘to go out’—verb phrases in which the adverbial and
verbal components are variable, and do not constitute a Composite
verb.
Others, however, are used figuratively, and combine with a particular
semantically loaded auxiliary to form generally opaque idioms (see
also above, Correlative pairs): аз бар к. jl ‘to learn by heart’,
дар бар гирифтан j_i jj‘to embrace’ {bar ‘bosom’, not used
independently); [умр-и худ-ро] ба cap бурдан/ бар-	j-a-c]
Jjj-j j—ш ‘to spend, pass [a long period of time, e.g., one’s
life]’ (‘carry to the end’); [максад-ро] ба ч,о овардан/ ор-
-jT\ JJjjT L?-j [Ij л] ‘toaccomplish, achieve [one’s objective]’
(‘bring to place’); [фурсат-ро] аз даст додан с.> jl	'»]
jjlj ‘to lose, forfeit [the chance]’ (‘give out of hand’; not of tangible
objects, or direction, which is гум к. £	; гум ш. . ‘to be lost,
go astray’).
Direct objects. Verbs governing a Non-Specific noun object may
likewise constitute a verb phrase (a syntactic unit) rather than a
Composite verb (a lexical unit): e.g., in the transparent маъзарат хостан
jP—uul j-S. cujj д a ‘to apologize (‘beg pardon’), either or both of the
components may be replaced by synonyms: узр пурсидан jj_____________c
‘to ask forgiveness’; whereas in a phrase such as нон кандан
^1__a. ‘to be dying/ in agony/ at one’s last gasp; [fig.] to slave,
live a life of drudgeiy’ (lit., ‘slough off [one’s] life’), neither component
could be replaced without rendering the idiom meaningless. The dis-
tinction is not always clear-cut, but in any case it makes no difference
to the syntax of these units as verb phrases, and each forms its activity
noun in the same way: узрпурсй	узрхох,й ^j-alj-S-jj-x.,
маъзаратхох,й ‘apologizing, offering excuses’; чрнканй o '< ~>l____a.
‘agony; drudgeiy’.
Syntax and derivation. In a coordinate VP, one of the identical
auxiliaries may be gapped (4.5), if the coordinates are in all respects
parallel: тавба ва дасам додам ^jIj __________j j ‘I vowed and
swore [not to do it again]’ (‘gave repentance and oath’).
A noun participating in a Composite verb is Non-Specific, and
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CHAPTER FIVE
may not normally take a grammatical adjunct (but see izofat under
Other composites, 5.18). However, it may take the plural suffix -ho for
emphasis (2.7): азоб-х,о кашиданд г.л _ л, < j_c ‘they suffered
(considerable/ all kinds of) torment’.
The verbal Activity nouns may be derived from many Composite
verbs by adding the nominal suffix 7 to Stem I: шамшер-зан-й
jj ‘fencing, swordplay’ (samsir ‘sword’); саранчом-дих,й
j I j-—*completion, fulfilment’. The object of a transitive verb
may be juxtaposed to the Activity noun (in Cyrillic, written as one
word): дарс-тайёр-куни-и ман бо у jl L> 'Xjl t ‘my
preparation of lessons with him’.
The adjective-adverb in -on is frequently formed from Composite
verbs: хамёза-кунон a ‘yawning’, муй-канон
‘tearing [her] hair’. It may be used in quite long circumstantial phrases:
ба чанг-овар-он бо чашм-и пур мех,р ва ифтихор-и падарона
нигох,-кунон... 4_3l jJj jl.A ~ al J J fl Л ? L (jljjT 	4-1
‘watching the warriors with eyes full of affection and
fatherly pride...’ (see 3.39).
Normally a Composite verb with sudan ‘to become’ (and its stative
equivalent, budan ‘to be’) is intransitive. In colloquial usage, some
common denominal Composites do take a direct object: вай мошин-ро
мунтазир/ интизор шуд л Л jl k vd \j к	л.1 - ‘he
waited for the саг’; маро интизор-анд '-.jl к-.-.I | ‘they are waiting
for/ expecting me’.
A modifier or a direct object is sometimes incorporated in the
Composite as the second term of an izofat'. либос-и ту {буи бензин}
медихад	csj-J >3 J ‘your clothes smell of gas-
oline/ petrol’ (buy dodan ‘to smell’); на {парво-и ч,ах,он} доранд-у
на {парво-и оянда-и худ} <_$!<3 j xijlj {jl—fl •>	<3
{jj—ьx3_j ‘they care neither for the world nor for their own future’
(parvo dostan ‘to have concern’; the second occurrence of the verb is
gapped, cf. 4.5); ман {интизор-и мурдан-ро} кашида нишастам
... Л', бл _i Л <, {1 j JJj—о jl k~i М] Т settled in to await death/
simply waited to die’ (the Composite verb is intizor kasidan ‘to draw
out expectation’; since the Infinitive object of this is joined as modifier
to the external object intizor, the whole becomes a Definite direct
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
467
object and takes -ro; see 2.7).
This example also shows how a Composite verb may become part
of a Conjunct verb or a Serial verb coordinate, where the auxiliary
becomes a Participle I (kasida; see 5.20); similarly, ондоро хеле
чусту-цу/ кофтуков карда ёфтем 5Кт \j :	I jL^sT
I a Lu oj ‘we searched everywhere until we found them’ (a Serial
verb coordinate; see 4.19).
5.20 Conjunct Verbs (1)
This construction joins an inflected form of one of a class of lexical
auxiliaries to the non-finite Past Participle I form of what is semantically
the main verb: парранда парида рафт cJj	‘the bird
flew away’ (lit. ‘...having flown went’). The auxiliary (which is
grammatically the main verb of the sentence) provides an adverbial
and/ or aspectual nuance, in this case that of direction (away from the
speaker) coupled with completion of the act (perfectivity).
Also known as serial verbs, explicator-compound verbs, gerund-
compound verbs, participle complex verbs, and converb(ial) cons-
tructions (in Tajik, fe’lho-i tarkibi-i fe’l, fe’l-i payvast), these are a
salient feature of Tajik, especially in the literary language and the
Northern dialects, where they seem to have originated as caiques on
Uzbek usage. The category may still be evolving and expanding; the
progressive tenses karda istodaam, etc. (3.18-19) are grammaticalized
instances of the type. There are at least eighteen lexically established
conjunct auxiliaries:
Баромадан/ баро—TJj-Л‘to come up/ out, exit’ (completion
of an uninterrupted action): мацола-ро хонда баромадам
j_aT j-j ijSl juk I j <l1L1_q ‘I read/ have read (through) the article’
(thoroughly); чанд мох дар табобатхона хоб карда баромад
j_£ i_ilj-A «uLAeu-d »L jj al_o kg. ‘he spent a few
months lying in the hospital (i.e., confined to bed the whole time).
Cf. tamom k.., sudan.
Бурдан/ бар- -_>_>\ JJ‘to carry, take away’ (transportation away
from the speaker; removal): хама-ро гирифта бурданд lj<~»-л
~ °j ‘they took away/ removed everything’; китоб-
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митоб харида мебарад j .l~< ‘he buys
books and stationery’ (and takes them away with him). This verb
is parallel to the intransitive raftan and the antonym ovardan.
Гаштан/ гард—jj_S\	Л.ХЧо turn; move around, frequent’ (non-
goal-directed motion). This auxiliary has two applications:
(1) It indicates a durative, but intermittent or varied, activity: дар
6of-h шах,р мардум саёхдт карда мегарданд ____________Л.ДЬ jj
ajcLua-U-cu ^»jjj ‘in the city park people stroll about/
wander at leisure’ (sayohat k.. ‘to tour, engage in recreation’); ана
гугирд! ман кофта гаштам ^ТЛХ	4_J ‘Here
are the matches! And I was looking (all over) for them’; курта-и
нав-амро пушида мегардам	* » _ л.I‘I
shall wear my new shirt’ (i.e., go out and about in it); реш монда
мегардад jjaaSl_____________=> ‘he has grown a beard’ (i.e.,
having let [monda] his beard grow, he goes around with it).
(2) In the Perfect tense, instead of istoda ast (in colloquial usage)
as a general Present Progressive tense: Шариф... диравгирй карда
гашта-аст -I 4ЛЛХ aj&_5JJ  >—‘Sharif is busy
with the harvest/ in the middle of harvesting’ (note the Composite
verbal activity noun, dirav-gir-i, reverbalized with kardan, then
merged into a Conjunct verb); хамсоя-и мо дар Душанбе кор
карда гашта-аст с.,  ..I 4 л ЛХ ajj£ jl£ 4 > \ Л.jj jj L» <i_J n a
‘our neighbor is working/ has been working in Dushanbe’ (see
3.18).
Гирифтан/ гир—j j <\	'«jX‘to take’ (self-benefactive): дарс-и
навро навишта гирифтам jJLs4 Л.Ijj-i q^jj ‘I copied
down the new lesson’; мавд-и кутодро дошта мегирифтем
Р _" ь.7.1л | j	‘we used to get the short wave’
(dostan ‘to have, hold’). Cf. the antonym, dodan-, and see 5.21.
Гузаштан/ гузар- ^\.Лм ‘to pass (through)’ (completion of
a prolonged action, but not a thorough or intensive one): газета-ро
дида гузаштам	Л,л С ajjj I j 4....'l_>j_S ‘I’ve looked/ glanced
through the newspaper’; дар ин до мадлис-и... беморхонахо-и
район шуда гузашт jLj (_jLa 4_jL jl—о—>-i ...(J'l I % л I\ 11 jj
Л.л С aj-Л, ‘this is where the meeting of the... regional hospitals
took place’. This does not occur frequently.
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
469
Дидан/ бин—- ~i j Д (jxjj ‘to see’ (tentative): нон-ро хурда дид
j_>j лаjj—a. IjijUi ‘he tasted the bread’ (xurdan ‘to eat’); ин
курта-ро пушида бин jj-x.. &л _> I j<Oj_S ‘try on this
tunic’; мо натич,а-и кор-и дар касро сандида мебинем I_____________о
j j »л _ >*!.< I j(ju^ j-й jL^ % -v i ~i ~i ‘we will sample the
results of each person’s work’ (sanjidan ‘to weigh, measure, test’).
By its nature, this combines with a limited class of main verbs.
Додан/ дик- -_aj\ (jab ‘to give’ (other benefactive): падар-ам ин
мошинро ба ман харида дод <j_a <t_> Ijj  л.1____________о ^jj_,
ala 6AjjA. ‘my father bought me this car’; номи худро навишта
медихдм f-ла <L~t Л.jJ> I jaj_i	‘I’ll write down my name
(for you)’; духтархо ашула хонда доданд <dj_______il t >
jJalj 6j3lj_A ‘the girls performed songs/ sang for [us]’ (xondan
‘to sing’, with appropriate object); Рахим мазмун-и когазро ба
мо хикоя карда дод лЬ ьлj£ L > IjiilS jj. .a. „
‘Rahim recounted for us the contents/ purport of the letter’ (hikoya
k.. ‘to tell, narrate’). Cf. the antonym, giriftan.
Истодан/ ист- — ~i... j l\ jjl T. J ‘to stand’ (durative, progressive
action): шумо то омадан-и ман нигох-карда ме-истед? I & А
S л j " ... алj_S aL$_S j-a Ja—of Is ‘will you wait for me?’
(‘...until my coming?’; nigoh k. ‘to look, watch’); to cap шудан-и
борон мо пахтаро об дода истодем l_« jljl_> ja_Д j_13
f_jal Tm J t>ala 1 j d ~ k j ‘until it started to rain, we were water-
ing the cotton’ (see 3.20). As in these examples, the present tenses
(inc. the Subjunctive and Imperative) usually denote an action
beginning in present time and extending into the future; the Simple
Past denotes an activity extending up to a point in the past (3.20).
The Imperfect denotes a durative past, as with most other verbs:
мо... ин хангома-ро аз дур тамошо карда меистодем I________________о
f л|~	CiLcs jjj jl I j <д a I < •. a jju Г we watched this
event from a distance’.
The Perfect and Pluperfect tenses of the Conjunct, [karda] istoda-
am, [karda] istoda budatn, since this is a stative verb (3.17), have
come to denote respectively the Present Progressive (3.18) and
Past Progressive (3.19) tenses of the main verb with which they
are conjoined; these are fully desemanticized, and need not contain
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any notion of ‘standing’ or have a human or animate subject:
рафта истода-ем ~i ы._>1 <i ~ ‘we are going’, об шуда
истода-аст cj_^I &al " Ы11| м 2, <_Л ‘it is melting’. Cf. gastan,
nisastan, sistan
Мондан j jJiU ‘to stay; to let, put’ has two distinct meanings:
(1) Sudden action, followed by a continuing state (reflecting the
intransitive sense, ‘to stay’): бурида мондан JxSl_____о ‘to
cut off/ out’; зан-аш касал шуда монд j_Ll_a ьа Л. J.., < j
‘his wife fell ill’; шарикхоямон рафт-и кор-ро гирифта
мондагй	<ид_аj_S ljjl£	.Lb  £._j_4.‘our mates
have gotten the hang of the work’ (colloquial for .mondagi-and,
see 3.15);гелида афтод ва аз до на-чунбида монд * <
аД|_о /•>?.•> La. jl j al_S_«l‘he slipped and fell, and didn’t get
up/ stayed down’ (junbidan ‘to move’); note that, exceptionally,
the Negative prefix attaches to the participle, not the finite auxiliary,
since here mondan does not reinforce the sense of the main verb,
but contradicts it: ‘move’/’stay still’. Arguably this is a Serial verb
coordinate (4.19), not a Conjunct verb construction.
(2) Non-completion or forestalling of an action (esp. with verbs of
perception): дируз дар куча ошно-и дирина-ам-ро дида
мондам ^aJ>L> sxjj I j ^1	<La.j£ jj J‘yester-
day in the street I caught sight of my old acquaintance’ (the transitive
sense of mondan, ‘to let, put’, i.e., ‘I clapped eyes on...’; see also
5.21).
Нишастан/ нишин- - A_i Л. Д „ Л. \ and шиштан/ шин- ja Л. Л,
- '_< л.\ ‘to sit’ (durative, progressive). Unlike the desemanticized
istodan, these auxiliaries still require a human subject and some
notion of ‘sitting’ as a basis for the continuing activity: бачахо
тамошо карда ме-шиштанд j’r> Л. Л,	г> j1 .ol »~i La< .
‘the children sat/ were watching’. However, as a stative verb (3.17)
its Perfect tense expresses progressivity in present time: mo ran
зада нишаста-ем <!□...»•> &jj u-Л U. ‘we’re sitting chatting/
having a conversation’.
As with most Conjunct verbs (but see mondan), the finite
auxiliary, not the participle, is negated: ман тамом-и хикоя-ро
ба шумо нак,л карда на-мешинам I » Л. ,	а1—«л
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
471
Jjli ‘I’m not going to (sit and) tell you the whole
story’ (naql k. ‘to relate, narrate’). Cf. istodan, gastan.
The verb xobidan ‘to lie (down), sleep’ and its Northern dialect
form xoraftan (= хоб рафтан j-S s j	j A) may be used in a
similar progressive sense if the semantic is appropriate: вай дар
яке аз Fopxo-и кух... бо йигитхо-и худ «дам» гирифта
мехобид jj <"i t । L> ...e>jl £ jI
j-x-il	j-5 ‘he was “taking a breather” together with his
men in some mountain cave’ (‘...taking a breath, was lying...’).
Овардан/ op- -jT\ JJjjf ‘to bring’ (transportation to the speaker):
аз бозор мева харида овард jjjT &j _« _>1jl_> jl ‘she
fetched fruit from the market’ (‘bought-and-brought’); хабар
гифифта биёр! ! _>(________i_>	j  < ‘go and find out what’s
happening’ (‘having gotten news, bring [it]’). Cf. the parallel
intransitive omadan, and the antonym burdan.
Омадан/ о- -T\ Jj-aT ‘to come’ has two main fields of function:
(1) With verbs of motion, it expresses motion toward the speaker:
давида омад j_ol aa-jjj ‘he ran up (to us)’; хавопаймо парида
омада-аст о—I ea—Л fta_jj_> L » /j‘the plane (reportedly)
flew in/ (has) arrived’ (cf. the parallel transitive verb, ovardan,
and the antonym, raftan).
(2) With a range of other verbs, it denotes the successful completion
of an action or the culmination of a process: муборизае, ки ман
дар давом-и се сол бурда омадам, натица-аш фадат хамин
руз маълум шуд алJL— «и— j»ljj _,л	<i_5 <(_$! ojjt-j «
л— jl»—a jj j j; n д>	I <	<^л_а1‘Фе result of the
struggle I have waged for three whole years became known only
today’ (the head noun is topicalized; see 4.1(8)); аз бозе ки
водеа-ро таърих дайд мекунад, то имруз... забои ва адабиёт-
и эшон хам ривоч, ёфта омада-аст л—gSjЬ jl
а Л—о? 4_S_flt_i ^fl^j (j I mi il «XjLa-jl^l (jl—ij ... jj^—al Lj Л ‘X a
-—I ‘for as long as recorded history, up until today, their language
and literature too have been current’ (lit. ‘ever since history records
the event... has gained-and-maintained currency’; rivoj yoftan ‘to
gain currency, become widely used’; omada-ast is a Non-Witnessed
Perfect, see 3.21). This completion may be anticipated in the Present
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tense: онхо супоришхо-и худро... 160-фоизй ич,ро карда
меоянд	I3—^1 11—я	I 2k ^La ^jujl  ... I д *4
xS_j ‘they are fulfilling their quotas 160 percent’.
Партофтан/ парто Lij_>\ LP—bLs‘to throw away, abandon’ (com-
plete removal, expulsion, clearing out, etc.; with a semantically
limited class of verbs): доруб-а гирифта, берунхо-я тоза карда
руфта парто, дон-ам	I jLa	х_, <4 т ~аj_S Ij jjLa.
jkSLa. < Lijj <t T a3j j_S ‘get the broom, my dear, and sweep up
every-where outside’ (ruftanl riib- ‘to sweep’; the preceding Serial
verb coordinate toza karda ‘cleaning’ merges into the Conjunct
verb); навда-хо-и зиёди-ро бурида партофт
cujLij_1	he cut °ff (and discarded) the extra
shoots’; бухори-ро канда партофтанд I
jiT 'aLi jj ‘they ripped out the stove’ (kandan ‘to peel off, uproot,
demolish’).
In some expressions, the verb aftodan/ aft- (colloq. and dial.
aftidan) is the intransitive correlative ofpartoftarr. шоха-и дарахт
шикаста афтод d «I <t  < л, j' SlALP ‘the tree branch
broke off’ (‘having broken, fell’).
Рафтан/ рав—_$ j\ LP-® Уto go; leave’ has three meanings, depending
on the kind of verb with which it is conjoined:
(1)	With verbs of motion, movement away from the speaker: бача
Давида рафт ‘the boy ran away’. Cf. the parallel intransitive verb
burdan and the antonym omadan.
(2)	Finality or irrevocability: дафтар-ам гум шуда рафт
cu-ij ft,' * f-S ‘my notebook got lost’; падар-аш кайхо мурда
рафта-аст <i Т bj j_о I д j a_i ‘his father has been
dead for a long time’.
(3)	Progressive change: чой хунук шуда рафт  £л A. ^La.
oij ‘the tea has gone cold’; охиста-охиста сихдт шуда меравй
«1 ‘ a	... лf ‘little by little you’ll get
well’.
The following sentence successively illustrates (2) and (3): май
хеста равам, хавлй нобуд шуда меравад <1 "1 ... j A j-»
jзj 6 jp, j3—1 Ll ^з-а. ‘[If] I up and leave, the house will go to
rack and ruin’ (‘gradually become non-existent’).
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
473
Cap додан/ дих- -_лл\ (jjb j—mj ‘to let go, launch, start’ (sudden
inception; cf. firistodari): Ойиша токдт карда натавониста,
якбора гирья карда cap дод <4 T ...•>!4 4. jl_c
jlj j_uu 4-jj.S &jL '<_i ‘Oisha could not bear it and suddenly
burst into tears’ (girya k., now spelled гиря, ‘to weep’). Cf. ba —
sar kardan ‘to begin to — ’, 4.25.
Тамом кардан/ кун- -_1£\ ^L_aJS‘to finish’ (completion of an
action or process; less frequent than Sudan): мактубро навишта
тамом кардам ^СаЛ I j ~i«\ n‘I finished writing
the letter’.
Фиристодан/ фирист—~  j_i\ j d ~ ...j_i ‘to send’ (sudden, viol-
ent action; generally with intransitive verbs meaning ‘to laugh’,
‘to weep’; cf. sar dodan): Зебинисо кох-кох зада хандида
фиристод jl ~i ...j_a tuLjj-jS. й!_2 й!_2 Lu*J> ‘Zebiniso
suddenly laughed out loud/ burst into guffaws’ (a Serial verb
coordinate, qoh-qoh zada +xandida ‘guffawing, laughing’ merging
with a Conjunct vedo,xandida firistod).
Шудан/ шав—j________4>\ jj___i ‘to become, happen’ (completion of an
action; in early New Persian, Sudan meant ‘to go (away)’, which
may explain this idiom): хурда шудам	‘I’ve finished
eating/ had enough to eat’; китобро хонда шудам	$
_____JL txSlj___4. ‘I finished (reading) the book’; Зулайхо шарт-
нома-ро навишта шуд-у ба ман нигох кард -Cj—I Ч j IJ
j6______________j ,> »i ~ *.I j 4_o Ci ‘Zulaikha wrote up the
contract and looked at me’. This combines with a wide range of
verbs, usually with a human subject. Cf. tamom k.., baromadan.
Note that a Past Participle I followed by a form of Sudan may
signal the Passive voice (3.34—36). Conjunct verb sentences using
Sudan therefore tend to be explicitly transitive, as in the last example
with its direct object, or otherwise semantically incompatible with
a Passive interpretation, as in the first (not *‘I have been eaten’!).
5.21 Conjunct Verbs (2)
The system of eighteen auxiliaries described above is, historically, a
distillation of a longer-established and freer use of Serial verb coord-
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inates, which has infiltrated the aspecto-temporal system (with istodan)
and the modal auxiliary constructions (tavonistan, 4.22). In the form of
Serial verb coordinates, it continues more or less independently of the
Conjunct verb subset, and creates some interference for the latter:
semantic paradigms are unevenly matched, meanings of finite “aux-
iliaries” may vary unexpectedly, or Conjunct verb phrases may seem
to be reversed, with a lexical auxiliary as the participle and a finite
main verb. Added to this are socio-stylistic contrasts between written
and spoken Tajik, different dialects, and between MLT and other written
styles. The following notes are arranged under the head of the lexical
auxiliaries identified as in 5.20.
Barovardan: The Soviet-era activity noun кор-карда-барорй jl___£
j----$ ‘(end) production’, as in кор-карда-барори-и
молхо-и чарм-вор jlJLo	‘product-
ion of leather goods’ (cf. also Complex verbs, 5.17) appears to
derive from a Conjunct verb kor-karda barovardan! baror- (lit.
‘having worked, bring out)’; however, the phrase does not seem to
be attested in a finite form.
Giriftan: The Conjunct verb navista giriftan ‘to copy, jot down’ some-
times appears as if reversed: бачахо, а [аз] дахан-и ман гирифта
нависит [нависед]	j_S j_o jl .La<i ‘child-
ren, write down at my dictation’. After the adverbial a[z] dahan-i
man ‘from my mouth’, the verb ‘to take’ follows more logically
than ‘to write’; technically, the phrase may be seen either as a
Serial verb coordinate, ‘take-and-write’ (4.19), or as use of a
Conjunct participle, in which the participial verb is the adverbial
(cf. baromada ‘out’, 5.17).
Verbs of perception and intellection, which are by nature self-
benefactive, often acquire giriftan as a redundant auxiliary: омухта
гирифтан jpj‘to learn’, фахмида г. . л д i ‘to
understand’.
Verbal conjuncts involving giriftan as the finite verb tend to be
more literal, as газида гирифтан	j__^ ‘to bite off’
(gazidan ‘to bite’), and barovarda giriftan ‘to take out’: Мухаббат
ба пакет синча карда, мактубро бароварда гирифт ва
когазро яла кард lj<_."X «	?	...	<_> л
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
475
<lL I jlxLS j cjjj-S fcjjjl j_> ‘Muhabbat peered at the enve-
lope, took out the letter and unfolded it’ (‘opened the paper’). This
is not the “self-benefactive” adverbial sense of girift as an auxiliary
(5.20), but literally ‘took hold of’; the participle bar-ovarda is the
adverbial element, as a Conjunct participle ‘[bringing] out’ (see
5.17). Similar are гурзод-ро... морхо печонида гирифтанд
j\~i '«j-S	и LajLa	‘the snakes coiled around
Gurzod/ seized G. in their coils’, and аз риш-и дароз-аш печон-
да гирифтам jdjoasl ?	<_£ uAt? j j* ‘I seized him by
his long beard and twisted it’ (pec-on(i)dan ‘to twist, coil’, tr., a
Causative).
Guzastan: A sentence such as the following, where the participial verb
is explicitly a mode of action and the finite verb may be interpreted
literally, is likely to be a Serial verb coordinate: лукма-хо-и нон
гулуяш-ро харошида гузаштанд	jl ^-t a<i л tl
ГГ1 aj j 4,lj_a. ‘the bits of bread scraped his throat as he
swallowed them’ (‘...scraped-and-passed through’).
Didan: Similar to the foregoing is хамон когаз-ро хонда бинед!
a _i ~i_i  j-A I j j_Al_S jl д a ‘take a look at that note!’ (i.e. a
Serial verb coordinate, ‘read-and-react to’, probably not ‘try to
read’).
Istodan. As noted above (5.20), the stative tenses of this verb (Perfect
and Pluperfect) have been grammaticalized as auxiliaries in the
compound Progressive tenses, while other tenses still express
nuances of the progressive aspect within a Conjunct verb matrix.
One of the tokens of a shift from VP to tense has been the attachment
of the negative prefix to the first component of the phrase, i.e., the
Past Participle of the main verb: na-rafta istoda-and ‘they are not
leaving’; this contrasts with the usual placement of the prefix on
the finite verb in a Conjunct verb construction: от хунук шуда
на-истад j "	(jif ‘don’t let the food get cold’.
However, the negative may also be found prefixed to the participial
verb in other than the Progressive tenses: хозир на-гуфта истем?
<?-. .	.1 d a<~. ‘Aren’t we going to tell now?/ Are we
going to stand here without saying anything?’; this separates the
conjoined verbs into their semantic spheres and places the negative
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CHAPTER FIVE
where it belongs—the telling is negated, the ‘standing’ or progres-
sivity is not.
Mondan. This polysemous verb is involved in several distinct idioms,
and will not always reflect either of its established senses as an
apparent Conjunct auxiliary (Sudden action followed by stasis;
Forestalling of an action): агар одамро газад, на-кушта на-
мемонда-аст ml	«I ~	jJJ'if it bites
a person, he inevitably dies/ never survives’ (‘...he/ she does not
stay un-killed’). The double negative (for rhetorical emphasis)
tends to disguise the fact that \na\kusta is Passive, and therefore
the complement of the sentence, not a component of an active
verb whether Conjunct or of any other kind; and that the forms
and meanings of this and of me-monda-ast are separate (the tense
of mondan is the Non-Witnessed durative; 3.22).
Some writers have occasionally split Conjunct verb pairs into Simple
Past tenses, joined with the coordinate conjunction -y 3 (esp. where
the auxiliary is an aspect marker such as mondan or raftan, and the
sentence appears to mean much the same): писар дар ч,авоб-и ин
суханх;о-и модар-аш фадат хандид-у монд	<_J3—jj j ... 
jSLj j xja-IA fa i (ji jjL-o (jl ‘A .‘in reply to these words of his
mother, the boy just laughed’ (‘laughed-and-stayed’, for xandida mond)\
дама-и ин гузашт-у фаромуш шуд-у рафт j *.'< < jj_>l а „л
cu-bj j j—4. (3^з—ala ‘all this passed and was gradually forgotten’
(‘was-forgotten-and-went’); нисбат ба ман шакк-у шубда-и у
барф-и мавсим-и бадор барин об шуд-у рафт
irj-bj з	j*—J—° j-? j' d .' ‘her doubt and
suspicion of me melted away like snow in spring’ (‘became-water-
and-went’).
Syntax. In colloquial and dialect usage, the participial component
may be postposed: корд биёр рафта jLxj jjLS ‘fetch a knife’
(see ovardan, 5.20); сафар Алхитой рафт кучида ^1 к д II i
йа-лл-з^ cu-ij ‘Safar moved to Alkhitoi’ (kiicidan ‘to migrate, move to
new quarters’).
Serial verb coordinates and Conjunct constructions may be “gapped”,
i.e., the first of two identical finite verbs may be omitted when parallel
participial components are coordinated with ва 3 ‘and’ or ё L ‘or’:
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
477
по-хо-шонро ба per тутида ё лагжида мерафтанд lJ(jl______________4.1л L>
j	L a j_Jajl. uS_j j «и ‘on they went, their feet sinking
or sliding in the sand’ (a Serial verb coordinate; the object marker -ro
is unnecessary, since the verbs are intransitive; it is perhaps in uncon-
scious imitation of a phrase such as пиёла-ро ба-дасташ бардошта
Llailjj-. T u.xi I j <JLa_> ‘picking up the glass in his hand’).
Two Composite verbs (even if both use the dummies kardan or
Sudan) may be conjoined serially, the first (participial) one functioning
as the adverbial, to form a single idea: гард шуда талаф шуд Jjj-x.
j—4.	‘he drowned/ perished by drowning’ (talaf sudan ‘to
perish’).
Conjunct verbs may be combined with or embedded in other parti-
cipial constructions: давлй ва руйдарича... {{{хароб шуда} рафта}
истода} анд {&jl т	<_J>^}}} j-'lsjj _s (j-lj-=>
jJl ‘the house and the porch... are going to rack and ruin’. Here the
first (or innermost) Past Participle I is that of the main verb xarob
Sudan ‘to become ruined’, conjoined with the Conjunct auxiliary raftan
in the sense ‘to change progressively’; the second is that of the same
raftan as the main component—and the third is the required form of
the grammatical auxiliary, istodan— ।of the compound Progressive tense
of the whole verbal complex.
SOCIAL AND HISTORICAL NOTES
5.22 Modes of Address
Between members of the same peer and solidary groups (age, sex,
occupation) address is essentially informal, though the sumo form of
the second person is more usual than the tu form (2.28, 3.4) except
among children and adolescents. When written, the formal pronoun
шумо I .o 4», if it refers to one person, is capitalized in Cyrillic: Шумо.
Given names are widely used, often with the endearing suffix -ч,он -
jjLa. for those of the same age or younger (lit. ‘soul, life’; in Cyrillic,
written as one word): Ахмаддон jl n -J, Зар[р]инач,он j
jLa.. Sometimes this suffix becomes an official part of a man’s given
478
CHAPTER FIVE
name; women’s names may also be suffixed (informally, in the spoken
language) with -хоп: Олима-хон jLL 4_J Lc. A man will refer to and
address a good male friend as ч,ура(-ч,он)	a woman a
female friend as дугона(-чон)	<lsUs jj ; дуст сшjj ‘friend’
is used for a member of the opposite sex, or is neutral and more
formal. The term рафик, 3-j jj ‘companion’ corresponds generally to
the loosely-used English ‘friend’ (rafiq-i sumo kujo raft? ‘where did
your friend get to?’), and was also used as the communist term for
‘comrade’.
Family members traditionally address one another by kinship term
rather than given name, again often adding -jorr, the numerous terms
(some of Uzbek origin) include бобо LL> ‘grandfather’, бибй о i. uj
‘(paternal) grandmother’, падар jj_>, дада/ додо Ijlj \&jj ‘father’,
модар jjl—a, оча ‘mother’, тэтой ^LiS, амак . n r ‘uncle’,
хола «dlA, амма ‘aunt’, янга 4 < ‘aunt (uncle’s wife), sister-
in-law’, биродар jjl j_. ‘brother’, ако/ ака 4_SI \LSI ‘elder brother’,
додар jjlj, уко/ ука <_£jl \L_Sjl ‘(younger) brother’, ana 4I, ая
<ul‘elder sister’, хохдр j-al^A.yKO jI ‘(younger) sister’.
Parents often address their children авдон-и падар/ модар jUj.
jjl__o\ jjLi ‘father’s/ mother’s darling’. Children use the tu form to
their parents, but may show respect by adding a 3rd person enclitic,
instead of a 1st person: дадеш, чй хостй?	«La. ejj (<
dada-as, for dada-am ‘my father’) ‘Dad, what did you want?’; ана
хозир нон меорам, очеш! '(jil-caf	(jLi j-ьъЕа <CJ ‘here I
am with the bread, Mom!’ (< oca-as, for oca-am).
Most kinship terms may be used figuratively to address unrelated
acquaintances and strangers of the appropriate age and sex. An older
acquaintance or colleague would be addressed by name, e.g., ако-Эрач
L£l or Эрад-ака 4_SI (male), and Фируза-апа
<_il (female). A person whose occupation is evident will be addressed
accordingly, supplemented by a pseudo-kinship term: партизан амак/
тато L_i_S \.< a <- (jj__Gj_i ‘Mr. partisan’ (somewhat older than the
speaker).
Family or surnames (насаб 'i, фамилия 4 11 j n '») take various
forms, a frequent ending being the relative -й (5.4). During the
Soviet period, Russian and Soviet modes of address became fashionable,
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
479
including рафиц —i j ‘comrade’ preceding the surname, and the
Russian-style name and patronymic, as in Турсун Иброхим-ович
1^ Л л fl) I I Qjj 4 и J J. Russian-style surnames were also widely
adopted (Юсупов a I Назирова оjlj ;U~.) Since the 1980s
many Tajiks have re-Persianized their surnames by means of relative
or patronymic suffixes (e.g., Юсуф-зода *dj. ° ...j Юсуфй
jL; the substitution of /for p further represents re-Persianization
of an Uzbek reflex of the Perso-Arabic Yusuf).
In referring to or addressing someone formally by surname or
profession, the epithets janob ‘Mr.’ or xonum ‘Mrs., Miss, Ms.’ precede
the name in izofat: чаноб-и Олимпур jj_ipJLc ‘Mr. Olimpur’,
хонум-и Каримдухт	p_LlA ‘Mrs. Karimdukht’; ч,аноб-и
устод jLl___^1 <-uLka. ‘Professor’. These words may also be used ref-
erentially, as ‘gentleman’ and ‘lady’. Other epithets (including the
historical and archaic) are met with in literature or journalism; the
main grammatical distinction lies between those which combine using
izofat and those which combine without. Thus there are three structures.
(1) As the head of an izofat NP:
Common nouns used as generic or categorial terms: кампир-и Махрам
—о j _ j—« < ‘Old Mahram’ (female), муйсафед-и Кабир
j-a-iS jit J-° 'Old Kabir’ (male; cf. 2.3).
Kinship terms of Persian (or Perso-Arabic) origin: хола-и Зубайдо
LA. ‘AuntZubaydo’,aMaK-n Равшан 3Ajj ,Gr ‘Unc-
le Ravshan’.
(2) As modifiers of an izofat NP:
Occupational terms: Мудаммад-и пайгамбар j j д « _ч > » ‘the
Prophet Muhammad’, Х,оди-и муаллим j ‘the teacher
Hodi’jbut, if further modified: Ходй, муаллим-и таърих
jl3 pL n ‘Hodi the history teacher’.
(3) Juxtaposed without izofat:
An epithet which follows the name or other variable (inc. many of the
kinship terms noted above, but excluding occupational terms) does
not take izofat. This configuration is a Turkic structure in which
the head of the phrase, not the modifier, comes second: Алй бобо
LL Далер-ака	Нур-ато LI ‘Father Nur’ (a
Sufi saint); Ахмад махдум pjj \ n ? ‘Master Ahmad’ (lit.
480
CHAPTER FIVE
‘waited on’, an epithet for the sons of clerics); Иброхдм-худа
<La.jA	(the vernacular reflex of хода <La.l jA below, which
precedes the name).
When preposed, these epithets may sometimes take izofat. бобо
Тохлр j-ftUa LL, but махдум-и Хдйрат ejj* j < «
Social and professional titles (both historical and contemporary): амир
Олимхон jLkjJLc j-x-ol, хона Хофиз JijLa. j_A; so also
мирзо Ijj », мулло yl_o, профессор jj ...	. ‘Professor’,
духтур ‘Dr.’, рафик, j-j-i ‘Comrade’. If used as common
nouns, these accept modifiers in izofaf. рафик;-и муктарам
л 3-j-i j ‘the respected comrade’.
The doublets устод J T .J (variant, устоз M " !) and усто
I—L—cul ‘master’ refer to, and are titles of, two social degrees of
professional. Ustod is a (secular) teacher, scholar, or writer, or an
accomplished artist or musician: устод Айнй o d~, ...I (schol-
ar and writer). Usto (the vernacular form, cf. xuja) is any qualified
craftsman or artisan, such as a carpenter, watchmaker, or confect-
ioner; as a mode of address or reference it may be pre- or post-posed:
Салим усто I ~ nd /усто Салим » J . .. I ~ ! Used as
common nouns, both these forms may be modified in izofat: устод-и
санъат jl__________j__-I ‘the artist’, усто-и соат-соз " ...I
jLujCu-cLuj ‘watchmaker’ (using the Stem I agentive; 5.9), усто-и
электрик-гузаронй ^1 j	"Xjll ^1 " -I ‘electrician’
(‘master of electrical installation’, using the Stem I activity noun;
5.10). The respective quality/ activity nouns areустоц-й d ...I
‘skill, proficiency, art(istry), musicianship; professorship’, and
усто-гй	‘craft(smanship), mastery; trade, craft’ (5.2).
5.23	The Arabic Element
Arabic vocabulary is the oldest and still the largest foreign element in
the Tajik Persian lexicon, though it is no longer a productive source. It
was arguably not as dominant as in SP during premodern times, even
in the literary language of the madrasas: the overall literacy rate in
Central Asia was lower, and among Tajik Persian speech communities,
both rural and urban, native morphology and vocabulary (supplemented
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
481
by borrowing from Uzbek) appear to have remained vigorously product-
ive. Soviet-period language reform specifically targeted the “archaic”
Arabic lexical stratum for replacement by native vocabulary. However,
the presence of many everyday Arabic words for which there is no
ready Persian equivalent (e.g., китоб "> < ‘book’, хаво Ij-a ‘air,
weather’) has mitigated the effects of purification.
Plurals. Some specialized uses of Arabic and Arabicate plural forms
(see 2.5) have survived the general Soviet condemnation of archaisms,
since they have been lexicalized and fill a useful niche. Words with the
suffixes -ot, -jot, -vot denote collectives: хайвонот ejLJjxa. ‘animals,
fauna, livestock’, мевадот aLj-j-q ‘fruit’, сабзавот о I‘vege-
tables, greens’ (cf. Pers, sabzijaf, the last two are Arabicate plurals of
the Persian words meva and sabza). Others have developed a singular
meaning: коинот ejLkLI______£ ‘cosmos’ (Ar. ‘entities’, in Taj. a mass
noun), ташкилот  -.yi _< ~ ‘organization’, хашарот	‘insect’
(with regular plurals taskilot-ho and hasarot-ho).
Several Arabic “broken plurals” have been lexicalized with spec-
ialized collective or singular meanings: атроф <_slj_LI ‘environs,
neighborhood’ (cf. тараф ._sj-L ‘side, direction’); талаба 4-----jJJ=
‘student’ (pl. талабагон jl < d k; the original singular толиб ULk
has specialized in the sense ‘madrasa student’; see also 2.2); аъзо
I ,A rl ‘member’ (of an institution, pl. аъзоён ^LL.A rl; but аъзои
бадан ^1 ‘parts/ limbs/ members of the body’, also узв-хо-и
бадан jju ^Laj .a.- using the original singular in its literal meaning).
In маротиба 4 Glj-д ‘time, occasion’ (sg. martaba, used in SP), and
шароит -k-Jj_____‘condition, stipulation’; pl. saroit-ho (the cognate
singular word шарт Joj______i is also used), the original singular has
simply been replaced.
Collocations. Arabic phrases incorporated as a lexical unit are generally
in the form of construct state NPs (analogous to, and sometimes replaced
by, the Tajik Nominal izofat) or prepositional phrases. Though often
integrated into verbal or adverbial idioms, they are nowadays rarely
encountered outside highly literary prose. They are written as one
word in Cyrillic: кдсабуссабак, бурдан j jJ j . 11 a ‘to take
the lead, lead the field’ (‘take the leader’s baton’, from a practice in
Arab horse racing); the definite article al- (seen initially in adverbial
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CHAPTER FIVE
loans, e.g., албатта <tS_J I ‘of course’, алвидо £ I jjJ I ‘farewell’) usual-
ly appears as ul- in second position (or assimilated with the initial of
the following noun, uss-, etc.; cf. 1.16).
Among those assimilated into the current written language are the
adverbs минбаъд j______»_i ‘henceforth, from now/ then on’ (2.48),
филхрл JLaJI ^j-iand филфавр jj ill ‘at once, immediately’,
аладдавом j»l jaJI ‘continually, on a stretch’ and алалхусус
________ \ I l‘especially, in particular’. These often have single-word
cognates and/ or synonyms: доимо Lollj and мудом ‘continual-
ly, continuously’.
Other aspects of Arabic influence are touched on elsewhere (ortho-
graphy, 1.13-15; tanvin adverbs, 2.46; numerals, 2.49; lexical distri-
bution, 5.24).
5.24	Lexical Distribution, Persian ~ Tajik
In the everyday Persian and Perso-Arabic vocabulary, even frequently-
used words have been differentially distributed between Iran and Central
Asia. Some Tajik words and expressions are either completely foreign
to Iranians, or perceived as archaic or literary; the meanings of some
common words have shifted enough to constitute “false friends,” looking
deceptively identical but in fact with misleadingly different meanings
in the different varieties of Persian (for differences of pronunciation,
obviously an important factor, see 1.2-5).
The following selection, arranged by lexical category and topic,
makes no claims to completeness. It excludes borrowings from Russian,
but includes some Arabic and other words of non-Persian origin that
are part of the everyday lexicon in one or the other dialect. Words in
parentheses are Standard Persian equivalents, which sometimes coexist
as variants in Tajik.1
Nouns: алов, алав, олав jJT <jJI (atas) ‘fire’, бахр j—
(darya) ‘sea’, дарё Ljj(rad, rudxane) ‘river’, пахта 4 T (pan-
be) ‘cotton’ (but Taj. пунба-дона 4_lIj 4_ш ‘cottonseed’), (гул-и)
садбарг	jS) (gol-e sorx) ‘rose’, шулгор jI <I .? (soxm)
‘plowed land’, кабудй j . 5 (sabz't) ‘greens, greenery’, сабзй
1 For a similar list, see Lazard 1956, p. 180.
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
483
;   (havij) ‘carrot(s)’, шурбо l_>jj—i (sup) ‘soup’, тиреза
(panjare) ‘window’, девон jlj (qafase) ‘cupboard,
bookcase’, сандали I > (korsi) ‘wooden frame with brazier
underneath and quilts attached’, чоряк . $ jjLa. (rob') ‘quarter’,
хел J  A (jur) ‘sort, kind’, майна «>'>_» n (magz) ‘brain’, пишак
	 (gorbe) ‘cat’, кампир j j (pir-e zari) ‘old woman’,
сатир (yatim) ‘orphan’.
Adjectives, adverbs, time words: вазнин Jj (sangin) ‘heavy’,
сангин j _.<'  (sangi) ‘(of) stone’, салдин	—И-^(хопок)
‘cool’, хунук ‘cold’ (sard), к,имат n _> a (gerari) ‘expensive’,
калон (bozorg) ‘big, great, оШ’,майда (xord) ‘tiny;
small change’, хурд jj____i (kucek) ‘small, little, young’, гафс
о A (koloft) ‘thick, stout', нагз J_»Д нек . < । \ (xub, qasang)
‘good, nice’, ганда *,» (xarab) ‘bad’, касал J.<, < (mariz, bi-
mar) ‘sick’, монда 6jJ>L> (xaste) ‘tired’, пок (tamiz) ‘clean’,
ифлос __________il (kasif) ‘dirty’, дулай j-----j (rahat) ‘easy,
comfortable’, тайёр jLJa (hazer) ‘ready’, хозир j .^1 (halo)
‘now’, дина (diruz) ‘yesterday’, narox. (soblv, farda)
‘morning; tomorrow’, бегох &l .> (‘asr) ‘evening; yesterday’,
тирамох oLoj-^(paiz) ‘autumn’.
Verbs: афтидан " Ы (oftadan) ‘to fall’ галтидан	j U I r,
' .-I A\ (zaminxordan) ‘tofall down, tumble’,шиштан u, &
(nesastan) ‘to sit’, мондан (gozastan) ‘to let, put’, кушод-
ан яла к. . <lL (gosudan, boz k.), ‘to open’, партофтан
j~,	ddur andaxtan, part k., radd k.) ‘to strew, toss; throw
away, discard’, кофтан ,^_k\S.(jost-o-ju k.) ‘to look for’, ёфтан
Ы dpeyda k.)‘to find’, гундоштан	k.) ‘to
gather, pick’, пешвоз гирифтан	Jlj £, (esteqbal k.)
‘to meet, greet’, гусел к. . J_ (mosaye'at k.) ‘to see off’.
Such differences are seen even in more recent neologisms and literary
words: Taj. маданият	SP farhang ‘culture’; Taj. иттифок,
jLiSl, SPettehad ‘(labor) union’; Taj. зной	Pers, rowsanfekr
‘(liberal) intellectual’, in which the underlying idea of ‘enlightened
thinker’ is expressed respectively in an Arabic-Persian derivative and a
Persian-Arabic compound; Taj. (MLT) байналхалдй ^«1 \ 11 <5^ SP
baynolmelali ‘international’, where the difference lies only in the
484
CHAPTER FIVE
selection of the central (Arabic) lexeme (currently, байналмилалй
I J-^jis replacing the former word in Tajik).
Many of the Tajik variants are also common to Persian of Afghanistan
(Kaboli, Dari).
Apart from individual words, there are systematic differences in
lexical morphology and syntactic strategies between Tajik and SP,
many of which have been pointed out above. A fair number of common
nouns and verb Stems I (and hence the Imperative sg.) are differentiated
by the frequent preservation in Tajik of CP final -у (-Й <3-) after the
vowels о T and у j, where SP has dropped it: пой ‘foot’, руй
j‘face’, фурой! ‘comedown!’, гуй! l^j-S‘say!’(1.8). The
variety of nominal compounds, the productivity of adjectival formatives
such as -nok and -gt, and of causative verbs, and innovations such as
Conjunct verbs, constitute other large areas of lexical difference with
Standard Persian (see also 5.25).
5.25	Uzbek and Turkic Influences
The Northern dialects are replete with pre-Uzbek Turkic and Uzbek
vocabulary, even at the level of function words. As a result of the
choice of the dialect of Bukhara as the vernacular base for written
Tajik of the Soviet period, several hundreds of common Uzbek loans
have entered the literary language. Uzbek vocabulary is widespread
even in Southern speech, though the grammar is hardly affected.
Examples of familiar Uzbek words in Tajik are: бой ‘rich’,
кулай ‘easy, comfortable’, кишлок, jyl j. a ‘village’, туй ^j-L
‘wedding, circumcision feast’, ярок, JIj-j ‘weapon’, ёрдам
‘help’, and a number of kinship terms (see 5.22).
Uzbek vocabulary is completely assimilated to Tajik morphology,
and participates in word building of the same kind; thus ёрдам к.
,l$ jLj (and — dodan! rasondan) ‘to help’, бои-гарй < _> _< 
‘wealth, riches’ (5.2), ярок,-партой	(cf. SPxa/‘-e selah)
‘disarmament’, where the Uzbek-Tajik compound is a modern caique
on the Arabicate compound (lit. ‘casting off arms’) still current in
Standard Persian.
However, the peculiar contribution of Uzbek (and its Turkic prede-
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
485
cessors in the region) goes beyond individual lexical handouts, and
thus beyond that of either Arabic or Russian: it has influenced the
syntactic structure of Tajik Persian in a number of specific ways. The
background to this development stretches back at least thirteen centuries,
before Persian as such appeared in Central Asia. The Sogdians of
Samarkand and its region, speakers of an Iranian language, were already
hosts to an increasing number of Turks when the Muslim armies of
Arabs and Persians rapidly subjected them to caliphal rule. Thenceforth
the Tajik realms (after Persian ousted Sogdian as the elite language)
were constantly in contact with speakers of one or another Turkic
dialect, as slaves, immigrants, or conquerors. This resulted, by the time
an Uzbek elite came to rule the region, in a considerable convergence
of the varieties of Persian and Turkish used in the Oxus basin.
The sound systems of the two languages, in the cities and environs,
became virtually identical. Uzbek speakers tended to lose their distinctive
vowel harmony and copied the vocabulary and style (including some
syntactic structures) of the prestigious literaiy Persian that was practiced
by their own literati. Tajik Persian speakers tended to adopt the language
of an expanding population of Uzbeks, and copied the vocabulary and
style of the soldiers and bureaucrats of the emir and of their neighbors
and competitors in business, administration, and agriculture.
Thus, when the speakers of Uzbekized Tajik of Bukhara and other
Northern dialects took on the task of planning a national Tajik Persian
language and its literature in the 1930s, the grammar included a number
of features strongly reminiscent of common Turkic and/ or Uzbek.
These have been alluded to above: Possessive NPs with -ro (2.18),
post- and circum-positions (2.23-25), Indefinite pronouns in kim- (2.37),
Progressive tenses that evolved from Conjunct verbs (3.18-20, 3.24),
an evidential mode, the Non-Witnessed (3.21-24, 3.27), the Conjectural
mood (3.30-33), an expanded range and use of participles (3.43-46),
the Turkic interrogative particle (4.8), extensive nominalization of sen-
tential complements through infinitives (4.15-16), Turkic styles of
reporting speech (4.18), Serial verb coordinates (4.19), the conjunct
dependent verb of tavonistan ‘to be able’ (4.22), nominalization of
relative clauses by means of participles (4.47), similar patterns of redup-
licated and expressive words (5.12), an expanded repertoire of Causative
486
CHAPTER FIVE
verbs (5.14), and calqued Conjunct verb constructions (5.20-21).2
While many of these features are a fully-assimilated part of Tajik
grammar, others (e.g., in reporting speech, 4.18, and the style of dialogue
itself), are probably ephemeral They were imitated in representations
of dialogue in the fiction produced in the heyday of MLT, but have
been diminishing in the works of a younger generation of writers from
regions other than the north.
5.26	Russian Influences
In contrast to the slow but steady Turkic infiltration, the large Russian
component flooded into Tajik Persian in a matter of decades, essentially
in some fifty years between the 1920s and the 1970s. Although imperial
Russia imposed a protectorate on Bukhara in 1868, not much Russian
vocabulary seems to have entered Tajik before the Revolution, apart
from a few assimilated loans and blends such as хучдйн
‘(land)lord, master’ and its derivative худайнй к. .	'	‘to
manage, be a householder; make oneself at home’ (apparently a blend
of Rus. xozyayn and Taj. xuja, both aristocratic epithets; the Russian
had probably been copied earlier from the Tajik Persian, which was
also widespread among Turkic-speakers in Central Asia); чойник
‘teapot’ (Rus. чайник; the Taj. blend has reverted to the Persian
form of the common loanword for ‘tea’ and has final stress); духтур
jj ~ A.j ‘doctor’ (Rus. doktor—the informal, international “field” term,
not the formal medical vrac); газета ‘newspaper’, in its earlier
written form cu /gazyet/.
With the creation of the Tajik SSR Russian permeated the speech
of the cities, especially Dushanbe, reinforced by code-switching and
official communication, the media, and ultimately as a bilingual norm
when the children of upwardly-mobile Tajiks graduated from Russian
schools. “Enrichment” of the language with Russian loanwords was an
expressed goal of the engineering of Modern Literary Tajik. Stalin
ruled that Russian words incorporated into the newly Cyrillicized lang-
uages should retain their Russian spelling, and many earlier assimilated
loans were re-Russianized (e.g., istansa ‘station’ became станция; the
2 See, regarding the verb systems of the two languages, Soper 1987, 1996.
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
487
borrowed Rus. кровать ‘bed’, however, retains its assimilated pseudo-
Arabic plural fonriKapaBOT ‘(raised) Western-style bed’.
Tajik derivational morphology replaced the corresponding Russian
formatives, retaining only the Russian nominal stem: Rus. большевист-
ский >Taj. болшевик-й/ -она	IL\ A IL ‘Bolshevik’
(adj., human and non-human reference; see 5.4); механиц-ировать >
Taj. механик-онидан	j n ‘to mechanize’ (cf. 5.13). Some-
times the dictates of Russian gender and/ or socialist labor innovations
expanded Tajik derivational morphology: Rus. трактор-ист-ка ‘female
tractor driver’ > Taj. трактор-чи-зан j j	(see 2.2; Tajik
could refine this new distinction even more than Russian, substituting
-духтар jAi.j— if the driver was young).
The ubiquitous Russian noun delo ‘matter, affair, business’ was
adopted in its plural form de la, and is repluralized in Tajik as necessary:
ин дела-до-ро ба тартиб дарор! ! jTjj u-j-д-З Ь I jUsaJ-jj J.J
‘tidy up/ sort out these matters! Clear your desk!’. Soviet work routines,
with strict schedules for mealtimes and other breaks, introduced words
such as обед a___u_>l /abyet/ ‘lunch(time)’, for institutions previously
lacking. (Such terms, though they continue to be heard in colloquial
speech, no longer appear in written Tajik, even in Cyrillic; their
pronunciation follows that of spoken Russian, and their spelling in
Perso-Arabic script is purely hypothetical.)
In word-building, one Russian model seems to have directly
suggested an otherwise unattested Persian form. Adjectives meaning
‘pre-X’, formed by prefixing to Lj ‘until, up to’ to a word X, and
suffixing the relative -i, such as то-синфй цс :.^.Ls ‘pre-ciass’, are
direct caiques on Russian adjectives prefixed with the semantically
and phonetically similar до- (in this case, до-класс-овый; see also
5.6). Again, the adjectival use of the pre-formative cap in Tajik to
denote ‘head/ chief — ’ (5.7) has been expanded to translate Russian
glav-: сар-инженер j j ‘j 'J and (more modern) сар-мухандис
^..,1'. д ~ j_‘chief engineer’, сар-фармон-дех aj-J—*j—aj—
‘commander-in-chief’ (‘head command-giver’; for the different types
of sar- compound, see 5.11, last paragraph). Multiple compounding in
general was evidently encouraged by Russian example, but stayed within
the theoretical bounds of Persian morphology.
488
CHAPTER FIVE
There is little point listing a sample of the ca. 3,000 Russian loanwords
in Tajik; they can be recognized on almost any page of any dictionary,
or of this grammar. Some have struck roots and shifted or expanded in
meaning: кино ‘cinema, movie theater’ also means ‘film, movie’;
Russian хлеб ‘bread’ is used only as a modifier of Tajik jL ‘(unleav-
ened) bread’ in the phrase нон-и хлеб   .К jL ‘Russian (leavened)
bread’. Russian vocabulary provided some nominal components for
Composite verbs (5.18), though many were lazy short-cuts in translation,
confined to journalese (e.g., диверсия кардан <  ...jj  < ‘to
create a diversion’). Tajik NPs might sometimes consist entirely of
Russian loanwords, but the syntax itself was not affected: комитет-и
партиави-и район jL j	.x. jj ‘regional party commit-
tee’.
Stylistic caiques are frequent; one instance is the bureaucratic use
of the prepositional phrase оид ба/ оид-и--ajI_c\ j_>Lx ‘con-
cerning, about’ to connect an abstract or collective entity to its raison
d’etre, in the manner of the Russian preposition o(b)\ комиссия-и
шахрй оид ба корх,о-и наврасон^СлjKj aaLx. %	। «IX
qI__cujj-i ‘the Municipal Commission for Juvenile Affairs’ (2.21). A
postpositional phrase such as Рустам ном як тоцик a£La ...j
. S ‘a Tajik called/ by the name of Rustam’ is probably an imitation
of Russian imeni ‘by the name of’ (2.24). Others have been noted
where they occurred in sample sentences.
Abbreviations and acronyms are a feature of Soviet Russian bureau-
cratic language that has readily been adopted (in Russian) and adapted
(to Tajik), e.g., вуз /vuz/ (from Rus. высшее учебное заведение
‘institute of higher education’; in Tajik Persian, мактаби олй   "< >
(-jJLx ‘college’); BAEK, for Вилояти автономи Бадахшони Кухй
‘the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region’ (now Persianized as
Вилояти мухтори Кухистони Бадахшон jj д>j । ~ k > cua^I j
jjLiAju). Hyphenated adjectives, juxtaposed without izofat, are anoth-
er (perhaps ephemeral) innovation of Soviet bureaucracy: кадрх.о-и
ташкилй-партиявй	- ul/.n'i ^La‘party-organization-
al staff’ (such pairs are in theory not hierarchized, unlike two adjectives
in an izofat NP; cf. Eng. Anglo-Russian, Turco-Persian).
Foreign geographical names were of course introduced into Tajik
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
489
in their Russianized forms, and are still in a process of transition to
Iranized, Anglicized, Gallicized, or native forms more in keeping with
post-Soviet orientations. Several have not yet stabilized as between
Russianate and Persianate guises, e.g., Италия «—and Итолиё
LJLk-J ‘Italy’ (see also 1.13, Choices).3
The language reform movement of the 1980s in Tajikistan, which
culminated in the language laws of 1989 and 1992, had as an important
part of its agenda the elimination of superfluous Russian vocabulary
and the measured replacement of even useful Russian loans by Persian
neologisms, many of them suggested by those already in the lexicon of
SP as used in Iran. At the height of the movement, conservatives
complained that unbridled substitution of Persianisms for established
Russian loans (донишгох, ь	Ij for университет oCi । jl
‘university’, хдвопаймо I n _> Jj-fcfor самолёт ejLJI n ‘airplane’,
etc.) was making the language incomprehensible to the man in the
street. Both of these Persianisms, and many others, are now firmly
established in the written language and increasingly heard in spoken
Tajik. It is as if the Russian language, having flooded in with Stakhanovite
zeal, soon overfulfilled its quota, and is now ebbing, taking with it the
flotsam of superfluous loans. It has undoubtedly left an abundant
sediment, but one which will stick only to the extent that it proves its
continuing utility.
5.27	Chronology of Tajik Persian
The following is a brief listing of salient events in the linguistic and
socio-linguistic history of Persian of Central Asia. All dates arecE.
712- Muslim conquest of Bukhara and Samarkand; Sogdian
rulers deposed. Persian gradually replaces spoken Sogdian.
875-999 Samanid dynasty, patrons of New Persian literature, at
Bukhara. Written Persian spreads south and west across
the Iranian plateau.
1040-1400 Successive waves of invasion (Seljuks, Mongols, Timur)
bring more Turkish-speaking settlers to the Oxus basin
and Pamirs.
3 For current geographical names, see Baizoyev and Hayward 2004, pp. 75- 76.
490	CHAPTER FIVE
1500- Uzbeks conquer Bukhara. Southward migration of Uzbeks
and Turkmens disrupts the Persian dialect continuum be-
tween Iran and the Oxus-Pamirs region; establishment of
Timurid (Mughal) empire in India increases some cultural
contacts between India and Central Asia.
1501- Safavid dynasty establishes Shi’ism in Iran; continuing
enmity between Safavids and Uzbeks (later, Qajars and
Turkmens) restricts cultural contact between Iran and
Central Asia.
Two sound shifts neutralize distinctive majhul vowels
in Persian of Iran, but not in Persian of Central Asia.
1868 Russians conquer Bukhara. Anglo-Russian imperial rivalry
leads to definition and militarization of the frontiers
between Iran, Afghanistan, India, and Central Asia, further
restricting cultural contacts.
1907-14 Tajik Jadids (Ayni, Munzim) teach reformed curriculum
in Persian. First Tajik Persian newspaper in Bukhara
(1912-13).
1920 Bolshevik-assisted revolution in Bukhara. Emirate abol-
ished.
1924 Establishment of Uzbek SSR, containing autonomous Tajik
SSR.
1928-30 Three language conferences establish the basis of Modern
Literary Tajik in a Latin alphabet. Tajikistan becomes a
separate SSR (1929).
1930s Conflict, collectivization, famine; tens of thousands of
Tajik refugees (esp. Jews) flee Soviet Central Asia.
1938 Communist party conferences define grammar of Modern
Literary Tajik. Sadriddin Ayni completes first modern Tajik
Persian dictionary (in Perso-Arabic script; not published
until 1976, in Cyrillic).
1940 Tajik switches to Cyrillic alphabet.
1940-60 World War II, the Cold War. Restricted cultural contact
with Iran, Afghanistan, indeed most places outside the
USSR.
1952-53 Russian loanwords to be spelled as in Russian; letters щ
LEXIS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
491
1954
1970s
1979
1988
1989
1991-92
1998
and ы introduced into Tajik alphabet. Death of Stalin.
Tajik-Russian Dictionary of Rahim! and Uspenskaia;
includes Short Sketch of Tajik Grammar, by Rastorgueva.
Death of Sadriddin Ayni.
Some increase in cultural contacts, notably with communist
Afghanistan. Extensive emigration of Tajik-speaking Bu-
kharan Jews to Israel and USA.
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and war of resistance. Tajik
troops and journalists visit Afghanistan.
Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost’. Aitmatov and
Shukurov call for mobilization of speakers of Central Asian
languages against absorption by Russian.
Tajik language movement leads to Language Status Law
and start of relexification.
Breakup of USSR and independence of Tajikistan. Thou-
sands of Russian speakers leave. New draft of Language
Law. Increased publication and importation of Persian
materials in Perso-Arabic script.
Spelling reform streamlines Cyrillic orthography.
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Moscow: Russkil iazyk.
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(KulliyotVd 12). Dushanbe: Irfon.
Baizoyev, A[zim] M. 1996. Muskiloti ta’lim va omitziSi ahfboi niyogon
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Birnbaum, S. A. 1950. ‘The Verb in the Bukharic Language of Samarkand’,
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Cejpek, J. 1956. ‘Die verbale Periphrase als ein wichtiges Unterscheidungs-
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Doerfer, Gerhard. 1967. ‘Tiirkische Lehnworter im Tadschikischen’, Ab-
handlungen fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes 37/3.Wiesbaden.
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Farhadi, Ravan. 1981/1360. Zaban-e tajiki-ye Mavara ol-nahr. Kabul
Jahani, Carina. 2000 ‘Restrictive Relative Clauses in Classical and Modern
New Persian and the Marking of the Antecedent’, Orientalia Suecana
XLIX: 33-56.
Kalontarov, la. I. 1974. Lugati imloi zaboni adabii tojik. Dushanbe: Irfon.
Karimov, H., et al. 1970. Zaboni adabii hozirai tojik: sintaksis. Dushanbe.
Lazard, Gilbert. 1956. ‘Caracteres distinctifs de la langue tadjik’, Bulletin de
la Societe de Lingui'stique de Paris 52/1:117-86.
----1957. Grammaire du person contemporain. Paris: Klincksieck
----1992. A Grammar of Contemporary Persian, trans. Shirley A. Lyon.
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Lorentz, Manfred. 1964. ‘Die partizipialen Wendungen—ein Unterscheid-
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Maniyozov, A. and A. Mirzoyev. 1991. Lugati imlo. Dushanbe: Maorif.
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5-6-94: 9-11.
Perry, John R. 1979. ‘Uzbek Influence on Tajik Syntax: The Converb Con-
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Lars Johanson and Bo Utas. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter,
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Monumentum Georg Morgensierne, II (Acta Iranica 22), 263-87.
GRAMMATICAL INDEX
Contains grammatical terms, English keywords, some Tajik keywords in
transliteration or transcription. Numbers refer to chapter sections, and may
include a chart or table; those in bold face are the principal references.
abbreviations in Tajik 5.26
abjad 1.13,2.55
‘-able, -ible’ 3.41,3.42,4.22
Zabyet) 5.26
accent, see stress
acronyms 5.26
action noun 2.14, 2.15,2.17,2.30,
3.39, 5.17
activity noun 3.9, 3.39, 5.2, 5.3,
5.9,5.10,5.17,5.19, 5.21
adjective 2.39-41, 3.39, 3.40,
3.43,3.46, 4.1,4.20, 5.1,5.10;
“active” 2.41;
as adverb 2.46;
as noun (see also Substantiviz-
ation) 2.14,2.15,2.39,3.43,
5.1;
affiliative 1.16,5.4;
attenuative 2.44;
compound 2.40, 5.8;
“dynamic” 3.42;
hyphenated 5.26;
intensive 2.44;
predicative 2.41,5.1;
relative 5.3, 5.26
adpositions 2.19-25,2.28
adverb 2.40, 2.46-8, 3.39, 4.10,
4.13,4.20,5.5,5.17
adverbial phrase 2.19, 2.48, 3.43
‘after’ 2.20,4.28
age 2.53
agent of Passive verb 3.36
agentive 5.2, 5.3, 5.6, 5.8, 5.9
alif 1.14, 1.15; maqsura 1.15
‘all’ 2.38
‘although’ 4.34
ambiposition, see circumposition
anaphora 2.28, 2.30, 4.1, 4.15,
4.42-45
animacy 2.27
approximation 2.6, 2.37, 2.46,
2.53, 2.55
Aorist 3.7, 3.25
Arabic alphabet, see Perso-Arabic
Arabic loanwords 1.7, 1.8, 5.1,
5.4, 5.5, 5.10, 5.14, 5.18, 5.23,
5.24
Arabicate forms 1.13, 1.16, 2.5,
5.3, 5.23, 5.25
arithmetic 2.55
aruz 1.2 (see also prosody)
‘as. like’ (conj.) 4.32
‘as if/ though’ 4.32
‘as [much] as’ 4.32
aspect 3.1,3.43,3.45,4.24,5.19
attraction 4.44, 4.45
augmentive 5.6
auxiliary verb (lexical) 5.18-20
‘ayn 1.5,1.11,1.15
‘be’ 3.6-7,3.15,3.21,3.41,4.24
‘because’ 4.30,4.39
‘before’ 2.25,4.28
‘begin’ 2.25
‘but’ 4.14
calendar 2.54
calligraphy 1.13
‘can’ 4.22
capital letters 1.9, 1.16, 5.22
category noun 2.36, 2.49
Causative verbs 3.2, 5.12, 5.14-
15,5.19,5.24,5.25,5.26
circumpositions 2.25,2.53,5.25
circumstantial phrase 2.48
circumstantial clause 4.43
classifier 2.50,2.51,2.53,2.59
collectives 5.3
498
GRAMMATICAL INDEX
colors 2.44
comma 1.16,4.42
Comparative of adj., adv. 2.20,
2.42, 2.43, 2.46, 3.41;
cumulative 2.42, 2.47, 2.48
comparison (clauses) 4.32,
comparative phrase 2.19,4.43
complement 4.3, 4.4
complementizer (ki) 1.6, 4.15,
4.26,4.31,4.40, 4.42
Complex verb 1.16, 3.10, 3.14,
3.41,4.15,5.7, 5.9, 5.10, 5.14,
5.16-17
Composite verb 1.16,3.14,3.38,
3.39, 3.41, 4.4, 4.15, 5.6, 5.7,
5.10,5.14,5.16, 5.18-19
Compound nominal 1.16,5.7-11;
Coordinate 5.10;
Determinative 5.1, 5.7, 5.9;
Possessive 5.6, 5.8;
reversal of components 5.8
Concept nouns 5.10
Concomitant complement 3.11,
4.16, 4.43,4.45
Conditional (tense) 3.7, 3.8,3.13,
3.16, 3.22, 3.27, 4.12, 4.20,
4.36, 4.38
Conjectural mood 3.1,3.30-33,
3.44, 3.46,4.21,5.25
Conjunct verb 4.19, 4.35, 5.10,
5.19, 5.20-21, 5.24, 5.25
Conjunct participle 5.17,5.21
conjunctions: coordinating 4.4,
4.11;
subordinating 4.26-34
consonants, Arabic 1.1, 1.13
consonant clusters 1.6, 1.7
converb, see conjunct
conversion 5.1
coordinate nouns 5.10, 5.18
copula 1.6,3.6,3.17,3.36,3.44,
4.3, 4.44
correlative auxiliaries 5.19
count noun 2.6, 2.7
Cyrillic alphabet 1.1, 1.10-12,
1.16
da (dar, prep.) 2.24
dash 1.16,4.18
dates 2.52
dative 2.18
days 2.54
decimals 2.55
Definite NP 2.7-9, 2.12, 2.16,
2.17, 2.51,2.52.4.42,4.44
degree (clause of) 4.32
demonstratives 2.31,4.1,4.17
denominal verb 5.13,5.18
‘despite’ 2.22, 2.48, 4.34
determiner 2.17,4.1
dialect 3.4,3.12,3.15.3.19,3.22,
3.23, 3.24, 3.33; 5.4, 5.15, 5.17,
5.21,5.27;
of Bukhara 5.25;
Central 2.19,3.18;
Northern 2.18,2.23,2.24,2.53,
3.16. 3.18,3.28, 3.30,3.31,
4.1,4.8,4.11,4.15,4.36,4.37,
4.38,5.19,5.25;
Southern 1.3, 1.5, 2.20, 3.18,
5.25
dialogue, see speech
diminutive 2.20, 2.23, 2.44, 2.48,
3.4, 5.2, 5.3, 5.5
disjunctive conj. 4.12,4.34
dummy verb 5.18,5.19,5.21
durative aspect/ tenses 3.11, 3.13,
3.17, 3.20, 3.22, 3.27, 3.34,
3.40,4.17,4.20,5.19
‘each’ 2.38
‘each other’ 2.33
ellipsis: in compounds 2.40, 5.4;
in verbs (gapping) 1.16, 4.5,
5.19,5.21
embedded clauses 4.26,4.35,4.42,
5.21
emphatic pronoun 2.32
epistemic verb 3.21
equational sentence 2.7
evidential, see Non-Witnessed
exclamation 1.16, 2.34, 4.9
existential sentence 2.7
explanatory clause 4.39,4.43
expressives 2.44,5.12
GRAMMATICAL INDEX
499
factitive verb 5.13,5.19
‘fact/ idea that..., the’ (see also
Sentential pronoun) 4.15
feminine (Ar. or Rus.) 2.2, 2.40
‘few’ 2.44
‘first’ 2.43, 2.52
focus 2.7,2.8,2.18,2.47,4.11,
4.13,4.24
‘forget’ 4.17
fractions 2.55,4.1
future (tense, time) 3.11, 3.14,
3.22, 3.25, 3.27, 3.28, 3.40,
3.42, 3.46,4.20,4.21,4.37
gapping, see ellipsis
gemination of consonants 1.8,
1.12, 1.16, 2.23,5.6
gender 2.2, 2.40
general validity, tenses of 3.9,
3.22,4.32
generic, see Non-Specific
gerund 3.38
gerundive 3.42
glottal stop 1.5, 1.11,1.15 (see also
Hard sign)
habitual aspect 3.1, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7,
3.11, 3.13, 3.18, 3.22, 3.27,
3.32, 3.34, 3.41, 3.45, 4.21,
4.24,4.25, 4.27,4.37
hamza 1.5,1.11,1.15,3.4
harakot, see Vowel diacritics
Hard sign 1.11, 1.12 (see also
glottal stop)
‘hardly’ 4.25
‘have’ 3.8,3.21,3.41
Hebrew alphabet (Tajik) 1.1, 1.9,
2.54
/hicci/, ,/hi§ki/ 2.37
homographs, homonyms 1.1, 1.2,
1.9, 1.12,5.1,5.2
hyphen 1.16, 2.20,4.9
‘if’ 4.35-38
Imperative 3.5, 3.7, 3.8, 3.20,
3.29,4.2,4.18,5.1,5.24
Imperfect tense 3.13, 3.17, 3.18,
3.20, 3.22, 3.34, 4.17, 4.20,
4.22,4.23, 4.36
imperfective aspect/ prefix 3.1,
3.5, 3.32, 3.40
impersonal idioms 2.30,4.3,4.20,
4.22, 4.23,4.24
inamimate agent idioms 2.28
ina 2.T1
Inceptive (Inchoative) 4.25,5.19
Indefinite NP 2.7-9,2.17,2.33,
2.36, 2.37, 2.51,4.1, 4.42, 5.25
Indefinite/ Specific enclitic -e 2Л-
9, 4.42
indefinite pronouns 2.36, 2.37,
2.38
Indefinite relative pronoun 2.38,
4.46
India, Indo-Persian 1.3, 5.27
Indicative mood 3.1, 3.21, 3.40,
3.44,4.42
individuation 2.5, 2.17, 2.36,2.45,
4.6
Infinitive (“long”; лее also nomin-
alization) 2.14,2.15,2.17,2.30,
3.2, 3.37,4.15,4.22,4.40,
5.25;
“short” 3.2,3.14,3.37,4.29
-ing (Eng.) 3.44
instance noun 2.16, 5.2, 5.18
instrumental 3.43
instrumentive 5.2
intensifier 2.44,5.12
interjections 4.9
interrogatives 2.34, 2.50,4.1,4.7,
4.16, 4.46, 5.25
intonation 1.6,2.1, 4.2,4.7
Irregular verbs 3.2, 3.3
istansa 5.26
izofat 1.1, 1.12, 1.15, 1.16, 2.2,
2.10- 16, 2.19, 2.45, 2.48, 2.51,
2.52, 2.55, 5.6;
Adjectival 2.10,2.11,2.16,
2.17, 2.40,4.1;
compounds 5.10;
Mute 2.10, 2.52, 5.6, 5.10;
Nominal 2.10,2.12-14, 2.16,
2.17,4.1;
orthography 2.10;
partitive 2.43,4.1;
500
GRAMMATICAL INDEX
with prep, phrase 2.11,2.36;
of Specification 2.11, 2.13,
2.16, 2.54;
Split 2.11, 2.13, 2.33, 2.40,4.1
‘kind of, the’ 2.19, 4.44
kinship terms 5.22
‘last, the’ 2.52
‘last, to’ 4.25
Latin alphabet (Tajik) 1.9,1.10,
5.27
“leapfrogging” 5.2,5.9,5.18
‘let’s’ 4.25
lexical morphology 2.1
‘like, as’ 1.7, 2.19, 2.20. 2.21,
2.23
locative noun 5.7
m-dash 1.16
mad(d) 1.14
‘many’ 2.44
mass noun 2.4, 2.6
metathesis 1.7
mirative 3.21, 3.23
MLT 1.2, 2.4, 2.21, 3.28, 3.30,
3.31,3.43,4.8,4.11,4.18,4.37,
4.42,5.9,5.21,5.24,5.25
modal auxiliaries 3.37,4.20-23,
5.21
modal idioms & adverbials 4.21,
4.24
months 1.16,2.54
‘must’ 4.20,4.21
names, personal 1.16,5.22;
geographical 1.16,5.26;
of letters 1.13
‘nearly’ 4.25
negative 1.6, 2.8, 2.38, 2.46, 3.5,
3.6, 3.40, 3.42, 4.2, 4.8, 4.9,
4.25, 5.6, 5.9, 5.21
‘neither’ 4.13
nisbat forms, see adj., affiliative
nominalization (of VP) 2.15,2.19,
2.20, 2.22, 4.15,4.32,5.25;
with action noun 2.16,4.17;
with Infinitive 2.14,2.24,3.37,
4.12, 4.15,4.16-19,4.22,
4.26,4.30, 4.34-36,4.40,
4.47;
with Participle 2.15,2.23,3.40,
3.41,3.43-46,4.1
nominal compound, see Com-
pound nominal
Non-restrictive, see Relative cl.
‘none’ 2.38
non-referential NP 4.46
Non-Specific NP 2.7-9, 2.12,
2.17, 2.33
Non-Witnessed mode 3.1, 3.15,
3.21- 24, 3.30, 3.46,4.15,4.22,
4.37, 4.39, 5.25
Noun Phrase (NP) 2.1,4.1,4.11
number, see plural; singular
numbers 2.9, 2.17,2.49-53;
cooperative 2.53;
distributive 2.53;
of frequency 2.53;
multiplicative 2.53;
ordinal 2.52,4.1
numerals: arabic 1.16, 2.49;
roman 1.16
Numerical NP 2.7,2.9,2.14,2.36,
2.45, 2.50-51, 4.1
object, direct 2.7, 2.8, 2.30, 4.2;
indirect 2.30,4.2, 4.4
obligation 3.13, 3.46,4. 20
‘one’ (pronoun) 2.38
‘one another’ 2.33
Optative 3.7, 3.9, 3.13,4.25
‘or’ 4.12
‘other’ 2.33
‘ought’ 4.20
participial phrase 2.11
participle 1.6,2.14,2.15, 3.40—46,
5.6, 5.9, 5.25
Partitive NP 2.12,2.15,2.17,2.30,
2.33, 2.43, 2.51, 2.52, 2.55,4.1,
4.43
Passive voice 3.1,3.34-36, 3.40,
3.41, 3.44, 3.45, 4.19, 4.22,
5.19,5.19;
Long passive 3.36, 3.43,4.19;
GRAMMATICAL INDEX
501
Short passive, 3.36
Past Participle I 3.2, 3.15, 3.40,
3.43, 4.22, 4.35 , 4.47, 5.19,
5.19,5.21
Past Participle II 3.2,3.15,3.16,
3.35, 3.36, 3.40, 3.43,3.44,4.1,
4.19,4.22, 4.36,4.47
percentage 2.55
Perfecttense 3.15,3.21,5.19
performative 3.12
Persian, of Afghanistan 1.5, 1.13,
2.20,3.1,5.24;
of Iran 1.1,1.3,1.5,1.13,3.1,
5.24, 5.26, 5.27
“Persian style” complements 4.15,
4.22
Perso-Arabic alphabet 1.1, 1..2,
1.9, 1.13-15, 1.16
person (of verb) 3.4,4.6
Pluperfect tense 3.16,3.23,4.36,
4.39,5.19
plural 1.5,2.4-6,2.30, 2.43, 2.46,
4.6,4.11,5.1,5.2,5.19,5.22;
agreement, adj. 2.40;
of Definite/ Specific nouns 2.7;
Explicit pl. of verb 2.27, 3.4,
3.7,3.10,3.31;
with numbers 2.49, 2.50, 2.51;
of type or model 2.6;
of verb 4.6
possessive NP 2.18, 4.42, 5.25
possessive pronouns 2.28, 2.30
postpositions 2.1, 2.23-5, 5.24,
5.25
precision 2.53
pre-echoic words 2.44, 5.12
prefix 1.6,1.16,3.5,5.6,5.10
Precative 3.7
prepositional phrase 1.16, 2.11,
2.21- 22, 2.30, 2.36, 2.42, 2.48,
4.26, 4.28, 4.42, 5.6, 5.9, 5.10,
5.19;
as modifier in izofat 2.11, 2.36
preposition 2.1, 2.19-22, 2.46,
4.26, 5.6
Present tense 3.10-11,3.12
preverb (see also Complex verb)
1.16,3.1,5.16, 5.17
product noun 5.9
Progressive tenses 3.18-20, 3.24,
3.33, 3.37, 3.40, 3.45, 4.19,
4.22,5.19,5.21,5.25
Prohibitive 3.7
pronominals 2.14, 2.15, 2.17;
contextualizing 2.28, 4.1(7);
demonstrative 2.17;
enclitic 2.19,2.30, 5.22
Pronouns 1.16;
anaphoric, see anaphora;
demonstrative 2.31;
emphatic 2.32;
indefinite 2.36;
personal 2.17,2.27, 2.28, 3.4,
4.46;
reciprocal 2.33;
reflexive 2.32;
scope of 2.32;
Sentential 4.12,4.15,4.26,
4.28,4.32, 4.39;
universal 2.36
proper nouns 2.14, 2.15, 2.17
prosody 1.1, 1.2, 1.8
prospective aspect 3.42
pseudo-direct speech 4.18, 4.40
punctual aspect 3.1, 3.11, 3.12,
3.13,3.17,3.40,4.24
punctuation 1.16,2.1,4.18
purpose clause 2.20,4.16,4.18,
4.40, 4.41
quality noun 2.19,2.44,5.1,5.2,
5.3, 5.6
quantifier 2.15, 2.45, 2.50,4.44
Quantity NP 2.9,2.15,2.45,4.1
quasi-article yak 2.7,2.12,2.36,
2.52,4.43
quasi-coordi nate 5.12
Quasi-future tense 3.42
quasi-passive 3.36,5.19
quasi-tense 3.1,3.14,3.42
questions (see also interrogatives)
4.7-8,4.18,4.46;
indirect 4.16;
rhetorical 2.34,4.7,4.8
quotative past (Eng.) 4.15
502
GRAMMATICAL INDEX
‘re-’ 5.9
reciprocal clause 4.32
reduplication 2.44, 2.46, 2.53,
3.39,5.10,5.25
ReflexivePronouns 2.32
Regular verbs 3.2
Relative clause 1.16,2.17,3.46,
4.26, 4.31, 4.42-47, 5.25;
reduced 2.30, 2.40, 3.43, 3.44,
2.42-47;
Selective 4.46, 4.47;
Semi-restrictive 4.42,4.44,
4.46, 4.47;
sentential 4.43
Relative conjunct 4.26
Relative phrase 4.47
Relative pronoun 2.38, 4.42
relative enclitic -e 4.42
‘remember’ 4.17
result clause 4.16, 4.40
resultative aspect 3.1,3.15,3.21-
24,4.27, 4.37
reverbalization 5.9
rhyme 1.2
-roq 2.42
Russian 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.10, 1.16,
2.2, 2.6,2.21,4.42, 5.3, 5.6, 5.9,
5.14,5.18,5.22, 5.24,5.26, 5.27
-Sa 2.30
sentential complements 3.37,
4.15-17,4.18 (see also nominal-
ization)
Serial verb coordinate 3.43, 4.18,
4.19,5.19,5.19,5.21
simile 2.23, 2.44
Simple Past tense 3.12,4.22,4.24,
4.35,4.39, 5.21
simultaneity 4.28
‘since’ 4.29,4.30
singular 2.4-6, 2.30, 2.49, 2.50,
2.52, 4.6
‘so [much] that’ 4.32
Soft sign 1.10,1.11,1.12
Sogdian 5.25, 5.27
‘some’ 2.36, 2.37, 4.1
‘ sort of, the ’ 2.19,4.44
Specific NP 2.7-9, 2.17, 2.34,
2.36, 2.52, 4.1, 4.3, 4.42, 4.43,
4.44
speculative simile (‘as if’) 2.23,
4.32
speech 1.16,4.18,5.25
speech acts 3.12
‘start’ 4.25
stative verbs 3.13,3.17,5.21
‘stay’ 3.7
‘stop’ 4.25
stress 1.4,1.6, 3.1, 3.5
Subjunctive mood 3.9, 3.25-29,
3.30, 4.14, 4.15, 4.16, 4.17,
4.18, 4.32, 4.34, 4.40,4.42;
withmodals 4.20,4.21,4.22,
4.23
subordinate verbs 4.15
substantivization (see also adject-
ives as nouns) 2.15,2.41, 2.52,
3.41,3.43, 3.44,3.45,5.1
suffix 1.12, 1.15, 1.16,5.1-5,
5.7, 5.8, 5.9
sukun 1.14
Superlative of adj. and adv. 2.15,
2.17, 2.42, 2.43, 2.46, 3.41,4.1
-ta 2.30
tanvin 1.14,2.46,2.53
tasdid 1.13, 1.16
telephone calls 2.26
telephone numbers 2.51
tenses 3.1
time of day 2.53, 2.54
‘too (much)’ 2.44
Topicalization. 2.30, 4.1,4.45
Transcription,-literation 1.10
Transitivizing verbs 5.13
‘try’ 4.25
Turkic (see also Uzbek) 2.20,2.40,
2.55,3.44, 4.44,5.12,5.25
“Turkish style” NPs 4.15, 4.22,
4.47, 5.25
‘until’ 4.41
Uzbek (see also Turkic) 1.2, 1.12,
1.14, 2.6, 2.18, 2.20, 2.24, 3.44,
5.12,5.19, 5.22,5.25,5.27
GRAMMATICAL INDEX
vaya (yay-ro) 2.27. 2.28
verb stems 3.2-3, 5.1, 5.7, 5.9,
5.10,5.17,5.24
vocalic -h 1.14, 1.15, 1.16,
2.4
vocative 1.6,2.26
volitional 3.13,4.23
vowel diacritics 1.14
vowels, long 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.14;
majhul 1.2, 5.26;
ma’ruf 1.2;
short 1.1, 1.2;
stable 1.2, 1.3;
Turkic 1.2;
unstable 1.1,1.2, 1.3;
yotated 1.1, 1.4, 1.12
503
‘want’ 4.23
‘whatever,’ etc. 2.38,4.46
‘where’ (conj.) 4.32
‘whereas’ 4.14
‘whether’ 4.13,4.16
‘while’ 4.28,4.29
word order 2.1,2.40,2.46,3.35,
4.2,4.7,4.26
xv- 1.13
/-у/, -У 1.4,1.8,1.11,1.12,1.15,
3.3
‘yes’ 4.9
/уу/ 1.12
CYRILLIC INDEX
Numbers refer to chapter sections. Brackets enclose paradigms or models.
-	a (-po) 2.30
-	a (adj., adv. formative) 2.53, 5.4
-	a (noun formative) 2.53, 5.2,
5.8
-	a (Past Participle I) 3.2, 3.40,
3.43
a, -a (particle, enclitic) 3.39,
4.8,4.10
aaa 2.26
аввал 2.43, 2.52
аввалан 2.52
аввалин 2.52
аввалй 2.52
агар 4.35-7
агар чй 4.34
-ад 3.4
адад 2.50
аё 2.26
аз 2.18, 2.19, 2.22, 2.42, 2.43,
2.48, 5.6
аз барои 2.20,4.40
аз вак,т-и 2.22
аз - дида 2.42, 4.41
аз [ман] 2.28
аз он-и 2.28
аз тараф-и 3.36
аз дад зиёд 2.44
-айн 2.5
айн-и 2.22
айнан 2.47
ало 2.26
-ак 2.48,3.4,5.2,5.5
ака, ако 5.22
-акак 2.45, 2.48, 5.2
-акй 2.48, 5.4
адиб-и 2.21
аллакай 2.46
-ам 2.29,2.30,3.34,3.6
[-ам] омад 2.30
-ам (adj. formative) 5.5
аммо 1.6,4.12,4.34
-амон 2.29, 2.30
-ан 2.46,3.1
ана 4.9
-ангез 5.9
-анд 3.4, 3.6
-анда 2.23,3.40,3.41,5.9,5.10
андак 2.45, 2.47
[андак-мундак] 2.46
андоза 4.32
-анй 3.40, 3.42
апа 5.22
асло 4.9
аст 3.6
-ат 2.29,2.30
-атон 2.29, 2.30
афтодан 5.19
адл-и 5.10
-аш 2.28,2.29,2.30,2.40,4.1,
5.22
-ашон 2.29, 2.30
ба 1.16,2.18,2.19,2.22,2.25,
2.42, 2.48,5.6,5.10
-ба 2.24
ба васила-и, ба восита-и 3.36
ба [зуд]-й 2.44, 2.46, 2.48
ба наздикй 2.48
ба ном-и 2.22
ба тавр-и 2.48
байн 2.21,2.46
-байъ 2.53
бале 1.6,4.9
балки 1.6,4.14
банд 2.50
банда 2.27
бандча 2.50
бар (noun) 5.19
бар 2.18, 2.19, 2.48, 2.53, 3.10,
5.15,5.16
506
CYRILLIC INDEX
барин 2.23, 2.44,4.1
баробар 2.24, 2.25, 2.53, 2.55
баровардан 5.19
барои 2.20, 2.30,4.30,4.39
баромадан 5.19,5.20
бархе 2.36
басо 2.44
-бахш 5.9
бача 1.8, 2.3
баъд-и/ аз 2.20, 5.6
баъд аз он ки 4.28
баъзе 2.36
багоят 2.44
бахр-и 2.20, 2.21
берун 2.21,2.46
бех 2.50
беш 2.45
би- 1.6,1.16,3.1,3.4,3.5,3.8,
3.10, 3.25,3.29
биё- 3.5,3.10
биёр- 3.5,3.10
бин- 3.3
бино ба 2.20
бинобар 2.20,4.30,4.39
бирун 2.46, 2.48
бис(ь)ёр 2.44, 2.45, 2.47
бо 2.19, 2.22,2.24, 2.48, 5.6
бо вучуд-и (ин) 2.22, 2.48,
4.34
бо (вучуд-и) ин ки 4.34
бод(о) 3.7
боз 2.23, 2.33, 2.39, 2.46, 2.47,
4.27,5.15,5.16
бозпас 2.46
боист 4.20
боло 2.46
-бон 5.3
бор 2.46,2.53
-бора 2.53
бош- 3.7, 3.9
бошад 3.7,4.14
бош[ад] хам 4.34,4.35,
бояд 4.20
буд-ан 3.7,5.14,5.18
буда 3.7, 3.21
бурдан/бар- 5.18,5.19
бутун 2.55
ва (see also -ву, -у. -ю) 2.27,
4.11
вагарна 4.38
-вар 5.3
ваё 4.12,4.13
вай 2.27,2.28,2.31
вайо, вайхо 2.27, 2.31
вахте ки 4.27
вале 1.6,4.12,4.34
варо 2.27
-вй 1.15,5.4
во- 2.39,5.16
во 4.9
воз 2.39,5.16
-вор 2.44, 5.5
-вор(й) 5.3
вохурд, вохурй 5.17
-ву (see also -у, -ю, ва) 2.40,
4.11
-г- 1.8,1.15,2.4,5.2
-тар 5.2
гардидан 5.18
-гари 5.2
гаштан/гард- 3.35,5.19
гахе (гохе) ки 4.27
-гин 5.4, 5.5
гирифтан/гир- 4.25,5.19,5.19,
5.21
гиристан/ гиря- 1.12, 3.3, 3.9
-гй (adj., adv. formative) 1.8,
1.15,2.53,3.44,4.1,5.4
-гй (noun formative) 1.8,1.15,
2.53,3.44,5.10
-гй (Past Participle II) 1.8, 3.2,
3.35, 3.36, 3.40, 3.43, 3.44,4.1
-гор 3.42,5.2
-гон 1.8, 2.4
-гона 2.51,2.53
гох... гох--- 4.13
гохо, гох-е 2.36, 2.46, 3.13
гузаштан/гузар- 5.19,5.21
гузоштан/гузор- 4.25,5.15
-гун 5.5
гурух-е 2.36
гуфтан/ гу- 3.4
гуё 3.39,4.21,4.32,4.43
гуён 3.39
CYRILLIC INDEX
507
гайр 2.48, 5.6
гун- 3.10,5.16
-да 4.10
дар 2.19,2.24,3.10,5.15
дар бора-и 2.21
дар кабат-и 2.2
даркор 4.20,4.21
дар сурат-е ки 4.34,4.38
даруя 2.46, 2.48, 2.53
даста 2.50
дафъа 2.53
дигар 2.33, 2.40, 2.46,4.1,4.25
дела 5.25
дидан/бин- 3.3,5.19,5.20
-дия 4.10
додан/ дих-, дех- 3.9, 5.18,
5.19
-дон 5.2, 5.9
дона 2.50
-дор 5.9
доштан /дор- 2.53, 3.8, 3.21,
5.18
дошта бош- 3.8
ду 1.14,2.49
дугона 5.21
-духт 5.21
-духтар 2.2, 5.25
духтур 5.21, 5.25
дуст 5.21
е, э 1.3, 1.12
-е 2.8,2.17,2.34,2.40,2.48
-е 4.10
-ед 3.4, 3.6
-ем 3.4, 3.6
-етон 3.4,3.10,3.29
ё (vocative) 2.26
ё(‘ог’) 2.12,4.11,4.13
-ён 2.4
ёфтан/ ёб- 5.19
задан/ зан- 5.19
замон (postpn.) 2.24
зарур 4.20
-зан 2.2, 5.25
зер-и 2.21
зарб 2.55
зеро 1.6,4.39
зидци- 5.6
зиёд 2.45
зистан/зи- 3.9,5.14
-зода 5.21
и 1.4, 1.12
-ид-ан 3.2,3.37,5.14
имкон, имконият 4.21
имсол 2.54
ин 2.27,2.31,2.42
-ин 2.5
ин кас 2.27
-ина 5.4
-инг 5.12
ино (инх,о) 2.27, 2.28
-ино 2.5
интараф 2.24, 2.25
инчунин 2.31,4.11
индониб 2.25
имруз 2.54
истодан 3.17,3.18-20,5.19,5.21
-истон 5.2
-иш 3.38, 5.2
й 1.2,1.12
-	й (noun formative) 1.12, 2.44,
3.42,5.2,5.9,5.13
-	й (adj., adv. formative) 1.12,
2.46, 2.48, 2.52, 3.42, 5.4, 5.5,
5.21,5.25
-	и (personal ending) 1.12, 3.4, 3.6
-	й (on Stem 1, etc.) 1.8, 1.11,
1.12, 1.15, 3.3,3.4,5.24
кадом(як) 2.8, 2.34, 2.37
кай 2.34, 4.7
кай ки 4.27
кам 2.45,2.47,2.54,5.6
камина 2.27
канй 1.6, 2.34, 3.39,4.8
карат 2.53,2.55
[кардаам] 3.15
(карда бошам] 3.26
[карда будаам] 3.23
[карда будам] 3.16
508
CYRILLIC INDEX
[кардагистам/-гиям] 3.31
[карда истодаам] 3.18
[карда истода бошам] 3.28
[карда истода будаам] 3.24
[карда истода будам] 3.19
[карда истода-гистам/-гиям]
3.33
[кардам] 3.12
кардан/кун- 5.15,5.18
[карданиам/-ям] 3.42
карра 2.53
кас 2.50, 2.53
кас-е 2.36
кати, катй (see also кати) 2.20,
2.24, 2.25, 2.47
ки 1.6, 4.15, 4.16, 4.31, 4.39,
4.40,4.42, 4.45
кй 2.34,4.7
ким-кадом 2.37
ким-кай 2.37, 2.46
кин-кй 2.37
ким-кудо 2.37
ким-чй 2.37
-кор 5.2
кошки 1.6,3.13,3.25,3.26,4.38
ку (‘where’) 2.34, 4.7
-ку, ку (particle) 3.39,4.8,4.10
-куя 4.10
куч,о 2.34,4.7
[кунам] 3.25
-кунон 3.39
кунон(и)дан 5.14
кабил 2.19,4.44
кадр-е 2.45
кад-и, кад-кади 1.8,2.21
кати, катй (see also кати) 2.20,
2.24, 2.25, 2.47
кафо-и 2.21
кашидан 5.18
кием 2.55
кодир 4.22
лаббай 2.26
лаб-и 2.21
лекин 1.6,4.12,4.34
линг 2.50
лозим 4.20
ма- 3.5
мабодо 4.17,4.40
магар 4.8,4.21,4.32
майлаш 4.9
ман 2.27, 2.28, 3.4
мана 4.9
-манд 5.5
-маоб 5.8
мард 2.2
ма-ро 2.27, 2.28
маротиба 2.53
махдум 5.22
махз 2.47
махкам 2.47
мадбур 4.20
ме- 1.6, 1.16, 3.1, 3.5,3.13, 3.22,
3.27, 3.32, 3.46, 4.20, 4.36,
5.18
мебаро-, -барор- 3.10
мебиё-,-биёр- 3.5,3.10
мебоист 4.20
мебошам... 3.7
медаро-, -дарор- 3.10
[мекардаам] 3.22
[мекарда бошам] 3.27
[мекарда-гистам/-гиям] 3.32
[мекардам] 3.13
[мекунам] 3.10
мефаро-,-фуро- 3.10
мефарор-, -фурор- 3.10
-мй 1.6, 3.1
миён 2.46
мисл-и 2.44,4.32
мо 2.27, 2.28, 3.4
мода 2.2
моён 2.27
мол-и 2.28
монанд-и 2.21,2.44
мондан 4.25,5.15,5.19,5.21
мохо 2.27
мохон 2.27
мумкин 2.41
-н- 1.8
на, не 4.2,4.3,4.9
на... на... 4.13
на- 1.6, 1.16, 3.1, 3.5, 3.25, 3.40,
3.41,4.2
CYRILLIC INDEX
509
назар ба 2.21,2.42,4.41
назд-и 2.21
намекардагй буд 4.36
намудан/ намо(й)- 5.18
нар 2.2
нарра 2.2
нафар 2.50, 2.53
наход 3.26-28,4.9,4.17
нахуст, -ин 2.52
-нгй 4.1, 5.4
нест- 3.6
нисбат-и/ба 2.21,2.42
ниходан/ них-, нех- 3.9
нишастан/нишин- 3.20,5.19
но- 3.40, 5.6
но-илод 4.20
-нок 5.4
-нокй 2.48, 5.5
ном (postpn.) 2.24, 5.25
ночор 4.20
-о (noun formative) 5.3
-о (adj. formative) 3.39
-о- 2.44,5.12
-обод 5.7
-ов 5.21
-ова 5.21
-овар 5.9
овардан/ ор- 5.18,5.19
-ович 5.21
одам 2.38
оё 1.6,4.8,4.16
оид-и/ ба 2.21, 5.25
-ок 5.3
-олуд 5.9
омадан/ о(й)- 3.5, 3.10, 5.14,
5.18,5.19
-омез 5.9
он 2.27, 2.28, 2.31, 2.42,4.43
-	он (noun formative) 5.3
-	он (adv. formative) 2.46, 3.39,
5.19
-	она 2.46, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.8, 5.26
он ки 4.46
онон 2.27
он чй 2.34, 4.46
ончунон 2.31
он кадар 2.44, 2.47
он-хо 2.27
-он 2.4, 2.6
-он(и)дан 5.12,5.13,5.25
-ор 5.3
оре 1.6,4.9
-ос 5.12
-осо 2.44, 5.5
-от 2.5,5.22
охир 2.52,4.10
охирин 2.52
охирй 2.52
пай 2.21
партофтан 5.19
пас(-и) 2.21, 2.24, 2.46, 4.28,
5.16
пеш(-и) 2.21, 2.24, 2.46, 5.6,
5.16
пеш аз он ки 4.28
поён 2.46
пур- 5.6
-пур 5.21
пурсидан 4.23
расо 2.47
раваду, рафту 4.17
рафик 5.22
рафтан/ рав- 3.10, 3.35, 5.19,
5.19
[рах ~ рох] 1-8
-ро 2.7-9,2.12,2.17-18,2.51
-рр- 1.8
ру-и 2.21,2.53
cap 2.50,5.10,5.19,5.25
сар-и 2.21
сафар 2.53
сахт 2.47
сер- 5.6
сип-сиёх, etc. 2.44
-сифат 5.8
соат 2.54
-солагй 2.53
-сон 2.44
-сор 5.3
сохиб- 5.6,5.10
-ст[ам] 3.6,3.30-33
510
CYRILLIC INDEX
-та (classifier) 2.50, 2.53
-табиат 5.8
тавассут-и 3.36
тавонистан 4.22,5.24
тавре ки 4.32
таг-и 2.21
тамом 2.37
танхо 2.47,4.14
-тар 2.42,2.43,2.46
-тарин 2.43, 2.46, 4.1
-тарош 5.5
тарх 2.55
таксим 2.55
таксир 2.27
тамом 2.38,5.19
то (prep., pref.) 2.19, 5.6, 5.25
то (conj.) 2.42, 4.27,4.29,4.41
то (classifier) 2.50, 2.53
то ин ки 4.41
-тоб 2.44
торафт 2.42
ток 2.50
ту 1.14,2.27,3.4
-у (see also -ву, -ю, ва) 2.27,
2.40, 2.49, 2.54, 5.10, 5.20
ука, уко 5.21
-ум 2.52,4.1
-уманд see -манд
-умин 2.52,4.1
усто, устод 5.21
Уу 1.12
у 1.12, 2.27
-ум, -умин 2.52
фалон, фалонй 2.38
факат 2.47,4.14
факир 2.27
фаро 3.10,5.15
фароз 2.21,5.15
фиристодан 5.14, 5.19
фоиз 2.55
ФУРУ(д), фуро- 3.10,5.15
хар- 5.6
хеш 2.32
хеле 1.6,2.44,2.45,2.47
хобидан 5.19
хоб рафтан, хорафтан 5.16,
5.19
-хон 5.21
хонум 5.21
хостан/ хох- 3.14, 4.23, 4.25,
5.18
хох... хох— 4.13
[хохам кард] 3.14
хода, худа 5.21, 5.25
худ 2.32,4.32,5.6
худди 1.8,2.23,4.32
хуш 2.30, 5.6
хурдан 5.18
ха 4.9
хабдах 1.7, 2.49
[хад, хадди] 1.7
хавай 2.31
Хам 2.33,2.47,4.11,4.13,4.14,
4.34,4.35, 5.6
хама 2.38
хамдигар 2.33
Хамин 2.31,2.44
Хамон 2.31,4.32
хамрох 2.46
Хамчун 2.20
хамчунин 2.31
хануз 2.46
хар 2.38, 4.46
Хар (ку)до 2.38, 4.46
хар хел 2.38,4.46
хар чанд 4.34
Хар чй 2.42
харгиз 2.46
харгох 4.35, 4.38
хает- 3.6
Хатто 1.6,2.47
Хакир 2.27
хеч 2.38,4.9
хеч вакт 2.38
хеч набошад 4.38
хеч чйз, хеч чй 2.38
хеч як-е 2.38
хисса 2.55
-ХО 1.5,2.4,2.6,2.46,2.48,5.18
хозир 2.46
хой 2.26
CYRILLIC INDEX
511
хол он ки 4.14
холо, холй 1.6, 2.46
-ча 2.44,5.2
-чак 5.4
чанд 2.34,2.50,2.53
чандин 2.15, 219, 2.31, 2.36,
2.50
чандон 2.31, 2.44, 2.47, 4.32,
4.40
чандшанбе 2.54
чандум 2.52, 2.54
чандумин 2.52
чаро 1.6,2.34
чаро ки 4.39
чи 4.13,4.46
чиз-е 2.36
чй 2.34,2.35,4.8,4.13
-чй, чй (particle) 4.8
чй гуна 2.35
чй навъ 2.35
чй тавр 4.15
чй тарида 2.35
чй хел 2.35
чй кадар 2.35,4.8, 4.32
-чй (noun formative) 5.2, 5.25
чу 2.26
чун (prep.) 2.19, 2.44
(conj.) 4.27,4.30,4.39
чунин 2.31
чунки 4.39
чунон 4.32,4.40
чамъ 2.55
чаноб 2.27, 5.21
чилд 2.50
чо-е 2.36
-дон 2.26,5.22
-чот 2.5
ЧУДО 2.46
чуз 2.20
чуфт 2.50
чура 5.21
шанбе 1.5,2.54, 2.54п.
шафат-и 2.21
шахс-е 2.36
-шинос 5.9
шиштан/ шин- 3.20
шон 2.27
шох- 5.6
шояд 4.21
шудан/ шав- 3.34, 3.35, 3.37,
3.44, 3.46, 4.24, 5.14, 5.17,
5.19
шумо 2.27, 2.28, 3.4
шумоён 2.27, 3.4
шумохо 2.27, 2.28
ъ 1.5,1.11
ь 1.11
э, е 1.3, 1.12
эй 2.26
эха 2.26
эшон 2.27
-	ю (see also -у, -ву, ва) 2.40,
4.11
-	я (-а) 5.2
-	я (-ро) 2.30
ягон 2.8,2.17,2.36
ягона 2.51
-	яд 3.4
-як 5.2
як 2.8, 2.12, 2.17, 2.28, 2.40,
2.49,4.1
як-е 2.36
якдигар 2.33
якнавъ 2.48
якхел, як хел 2.36, 2.48
якчанд 2.36
якум 2.52
якумин 2.52
-ям 2.29,2.30,3.4,3.6
-ямон 2.29, 2.30
-янд 3.4, 3.6
-ят 2.29,2.30
-ятон 2.29, 2.30
-яш 2.29, 2.30
-яшон 2.29, 2.30
PERSO-ARABIC INDEX
Numbers refer to chapter sections. Brackets enclose paradigms or models.
1.5, 1.11, 1.15
. 3.4
.- 3.4, 3.6
3.4
a- 3.4, 3.6
□- 3.4, 3.6
I .1 1.14, 1.15,2.26
L- (noun formative) 5.3
L-	(adj. formative) 3.39
-L- 3.44,5.12
cliL- (Ar. pl.) 2.5, 5.22
_pl 2.52,4.10
(_£_pl 2.52
252
f Jl '2.37
_>L- 5.3
16,4.9
^L- 5.12
Lui- 2.44,5.5
LL-	5.3
jjJT- 5.9
-(_,)! \йа—Л 3.5, 3.10, 5.14,
5.18,5.19
j^T- 5.9
.jl 2.27, 2.31, 2.42, 4.43
<jl_- (noun formative) 5.3
jL- (adv. formative) 2.46,3.39,
5.18
2.31
4_=L1 2.34,4.46
<d^L- 5.12, 5.13, 5.25
jjUJ 2.44,2.47
<£11 4.46
<C>L- 2.46, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.8
Ipl 2.27,2.31
jjl- 5.9
-j'XoJjjI 5.18,5.19
LT 1.6,4.8,4.16
L- 2.46
<_>l 5.21
Ы- 2.29,2.30
jjLI- 2.29,2.30
jj,d ~	* I 3.17
Jl 2.18, 2.19, 2.22, 2.42, 2.43,
2.48, 5.6
(jl JI 2.28
ls'-Hj1 2.20,4.40
jLj jl 2.44
opj-jl 2.42,4.41
[(jL] j I 2.28
JI 3.36
i-дj j I 2.22
L^ui 3.6
d~  4 . I ~ ,..I 5.21
J. I- 2.29,2.30
4.9
ci’l- 5.22
(jjLil 5.19
<£l .LI 5.22
^1 4.35-7
p.^1 4.34
JsJl 2.46
514
PERSO-ARABIC INDEX
fl- 2.29,2.30,3.6
Lol 1.6,4.12,4.34
jjj-»l 2.54
JL^o'l 2.54
ux^l^l <(jl£_ol 4.21
й1- 2.4, 2.6
aSl 3.6
oJIj-LI 4.32
<j| 4.9
<C>I- 2.46
^.iSl, 2.45, 2.47
2.46
j-^l- 5.9
jf 2.27
ojl- 5.21
<£jLLjl 5.21
Jjl 2.43,2.52
Vjl 2.52
^jl 2.52
(jjj'j1 2.52
б'1-.J 4.8
JjJ 5.10
Jl 2.26
csl 3.6
LI 2.26
<-=>—J 2.26
xj" 3.6
(jjl - ...jI 3.17,3.18-20,5,20,
5.21 ’
(jLiul 2.27
(j^l 2.27,2.31,2.42
(l^l) L.J 2.27
(j->.A \J 2.31,4.11
f-J 3.6
(jL^(jjl 2.27
2.25
.-ijb-.J 2.24,2.25
(verb prefix) 1.6, 3.1, 3.4,
3.5,3.8,3.10,3.25,3.29
L 2.19, 2.22, 2.24, 2.48, 5.6,
5.15
((jjl) Jjo-j L 2.22, 2.48, 4.34
< ।I (jjo>j) L 4.34
(I)jL '3.7
jL 2.46,2.53
6jL- 2.53
jL 2.23,2.33,2.39,2.46,2.47,
4.27,5.15, 5.16
cH^jL 2.46
-_j£l 3.7, 3.9
xxL 3.7,4.14
^[jjiL] 4.34,4.35
tfL 2.46
(jL- 5.3
j1L 4.20
xjJjL 4.20
1.8, 2.3
(j£L- 5.9
j_>(noun) 5.18
jj 2.18,2.19,2.48,2.53,3.10,
5.15,5.16
jjI j_> 2.24,2.25, 2.53,2.55
(jj-ofjj 5.19,5.20
5.19
(jl jj 2.20, 2.30,4.30, 4.39
'^jj 2.36
-jL\(jjjL 5.18,5.19
jjjj 2.23,2.44,4.1
l2j 2.44
jb.? 2.44,2.45,2.47
jjkj’ 2.48
jl \x«_> 2.21,5.6
<tSjl jl ал—i 4.28
2.36
xxjLlJ 2.44
PERSO-ARABIC INDEX
515
<£!_> 1.6,4.14
<_Л 1-6,4.9
j_>L> 2.20,4.30,4.39
iL 2.20
2.22
All 2..50
<l=Ja!u 2.50
oiL. ’ 2.27
,U=^Jj_> 3.36
2-55
jjj_> 3.7,5.14,5.18
3.7,3.21
<_> (prep.) 1.16,2.18,2.19,2.22,
2.25,2.42,2.48,5.6,5.10
<_>- 2.24
ejajj] <l_> 2.44, 2.46, 2.48
^351*4 2.48
j4->’ 2.20, 2.21
2.19, 5.6
-(!_> 3.5
-jL, 3.5
2.50
jj_>_> 2.46, 2.48
£_1 2.53
jl \ jjjj_>_> 2.21, 2.46
2.45’
2.21,2.46
-_il> 3.3
jUU 2.46
-jL’5.6
--jlSjj^ jjljlljj 5.19
J л >1 “j > 4.23
2.2’1, 2.24, 2.46, 4.28, 5.16
ji- 5.21
lf? 2.21
'JLj 2.21,2.24,2.46,5.6,5.16
<£17 jl 4.28
cu- 2.29,2.30
11 (prep., pref.) 2.19, 5.6, 5.25
11 (conj.) 2.42,4.27,4.29,4.41
11 (classifier) 2.50, 2.53
<£1J U 4.41
^>11- 2.44
cu-ijll 2.42
J11- 2.29,2.30
I jl 2.27, 2.29
jl- 2.42,2.43,2.46
Jbljl- 5.5
A_>jl- 2.43,2.46,4.1
. "..Yi 2.55
> > 1 a ~ 2.27
u£i 2.21
fLal 2.38,5.19
14Л1 2.47,4.14
jl 1.14,2.27,2.28,3.4
^p^ll^l 4.22,5.24
kLjl 3.36
(^)К 2.36
cub.- 2.5
jL- 2.26,5.21
2.46
jl 2.20
cjl 2.50
аЦ. 2.50
2.55
2.27,5.21
6,^ 5.21
Ijl 1.6,2.34
«iX’ljl 4.39
>^.-’5.4
2.35
jji^ 2.35
Jill’ 4.32,4.40
516
PERSO-ARABIC INDEX
лДа. 2.34,2.50,2.53
2.31, 2.44, 2.47, 4.32,
4.40
<t_i j 2.54
2.52,2.54
' C 2.52
бел-Ч 2.15, 2.19, 2.31, 2.36,
2.50
2.31
(PreP ) 2.19, 2.44; (conj.)
4.27, 4.39
4.39
«La.- (suffix) 2.44, 5.2
«La.- (particle) 4.8
jl\«La. 2.34,2.35,4.8,4.13
J-C«l=2 2.35
2-35
jji 4_a. 4.15
/al 2.35,4.8,4.32
«La. 2.35
5.2,5.25
2.36
jxik 2.46
4.14
1.6,2.46
1.6,2.47
W 17
«L^aa. 2.55
2.27
JIA- 5.21
5.19
j 5.16, 5.19
-> 5.6
-jA- 1.13
5.21,5.24
-_aIjC.\	3.14, 4.23,
4.25, 5.18'
...oljA.	4.13
3.14
2.32,4.32,5.6
1.8,2.23,4.32
5.18
2.30,5.6
2.32
(Jllk 1.6,2.44,2.45,2.47
3.4
-_Aj\jjb 3.9,5.18,5.19
j I a- 5.9
-jb\ г>Х_ДЬ 2.53, 3.8, 3.21,
5.18
——^jLi <s_Jub 3.8
jb-’ 5.2, 5.9
Gb 2.50
cliAj 5.21
_ДАа- 2.2,5.25
5.21,5.25
/a 2.19,3.10,5.15
6^L_i	2.21
jj 4.34, 4.38
jj 2.22
>jj 4.20,4.21
Jjjj 2.46,2.48,2.53
4. j <i ।a 2.50
2.33
<Uu5a 2.53
j a 1.14,2.49
5.21
«CISjj 5.21
б'а- 4.10
3.3,5.19,5.20
2.33, 2.40, 2.46, 4.1,4.25
<La 5.25
«I—±jj— 4.10
PERSO-ARABIC INDEX
517
-j- 1.8
IJ _ 2.7-9, 2.12, 2.17-18, 2.51
U.J 2.47
-jj\ j' 3.10, 3.35, 5.14,
5.18,5.19
jjjj	4.17
3-b 5.21
2.21,2.53
4> I j ~ t>J 1.8
6J|J- 5.21
--jj\ cpj 5.18
jUj (postpn.) 2.24
d3- 2.2,5.25
jLj 2.45
221
1^3 4.39
j-.- .j 3.9,5.14
5.3
cixxLu 2.54
2.53
jL- 2.44
[61?ц,._^] 2.44
CLul- 3'-6
5.2
3.6,3.30-33
,-A ... 2.47
2.50,5.10,5.18,5.19,5.25
2.21
>k 2.53
5.6
Jb- 2.28, 2.29, 2.30, 2.40, 4.1,
5.21
jl- 3.38,5.2
-_iLi 5.6
j Li 2.27
jLi- 2.29,2.30
xjLi 4.21
3.44, 3.46, 4.24, 5.14, 5.17,
5.19
--ьь\	3.20
2.21 '
'iki 2.27,2.28,3.4
LblZi 2.27,2.28
jLlki 2.27,3.4
5.9
« Sb- 1.5, 2.54, 254n.
5.6,5.10
5.8
кь 5.6
2.55
4.20
JLL 2.50
-Л , .u- 5-8
c_>i’ 2.55
cSjk3 4-32
1.5,1.11,1.15
2.21,5.25
kk 2.21
jjx 2.50
2.22
2.47
-гД 3.io,5.i5
2.48
2.55
-1_Д 3.10,5.15
518
PERSO-ARABIC INDEX
Jljj 2.21,5.15
(j 5.14,5.19
(j)jJs' '3.10,5.15
UiJ> 2.47,4.14
2.27
2.38
jjll 4.22
J-x-La 2.19,4.44
(_Дк 2.20, 2.24, 2.25, 2.47
j2a-j2a<xi 1.8,2.21
2.45
2.55
^LLa 2.21
<S- 2.44, 2.48, 3.4, 5.2, 5.5
□ IS- 5.2
<S,7,I S 1.6, 3.13, 3.25, 3.26,
4.38
2.20,2.24,2.25,2.47
US 2.34,4.7
(k-^IjS 2.8,2.34,2.37
C^IjS 2.34
2.53,2.55
[(•'<>-	3.3i
[ГоД 3.12
--ASVp^S 5.14,5.17
3.42
3.15
[^1 (j-S—\f ~ I 'I J SjL.~l < .1 11 bJj_S]
3.33
[^1 6j(6j_>S] 3.18
[^-uiLi 6jl~nu 11 bjjSj 3.28
6jl~ <u jI aj^^Sj 3.19
[^1	ь jl i < <i 11 bjjSJ 3.24
[jUL 6J_>S] 3.26
[fJ^bJjS] 3.16
[j*l bJj-j bjjSj 3.23
ь_£ 2.53
A 2.50,2.53
2.36
o.ijAS 5.18
Uk- 2.45,2.48,5.2
jxS 2.44,2.47,2.54,5.6
US-^S 2.37
fijS-^ 2.37
^-jxS' 2.37, 2.46
2.37
,^-aS 2.37
ч Л n< 2.27
jLS- 3.39
jjSLsS .jjj^LiS 5.14
[f^] 3.25~
<>iS 1.6,2.34,3.39,4.8
2.48,5.4
jS (‘where’) 2.34,4.7
jS <jS- (particle) 3.39,4.8,4.10
«u^S- 4.10
^yS \<S (‘who’) 2.34, 4.7
4—S 1.6,4.15,4.16,4.31,4.39,
4.40,4.42, 4.45
2.34,4.7
«tS^ 4.27
-tS- 1.8,1.15,2.4,5.2
jlS- 3.42,5.2
jlS- 1.8, 2.4
«UlS- 2.51,2.53
...blS ...blS 4.13,
(j-лLS<LalS 2.36,2.46,3.13
-jlaS \(>XiliS 4.25,5.14
-/aS VA-iiS 5.19, 5.20
(jajj^S 5.17
-_^\(А-<^ 4.25,5.18,5.19,
5.20
2.36
PERSO-ARABIC INDEX
519
1.12,3.3,3.9
5-2
-J\г>~. j/g 3.35,5.19
3.4,3.39,4.18
5.5
<G1S 4.18
LjL 3.39,4.21,4.32,4.43
jLyS 3.39,4.18
4.27
(adj., adv. formative) 1.8,
1.15,2.53,3.44, 4.1,5.4
(_sl- (noun formative) 1.8,1.15,
2.53, 3.44,5.10
(_Д- (Past Participle И) 1.8, 3.2,
3.35, 3.36, 3.40, 3.43, 3.44,
4.1
5.4, 5.5
4.20
Lj 2.21
2.26
Xxl 2.50
4.12,4,34
2.29,2.30,3.4,3.6
2.30
i»- (adj. formative) 5.5
r- 2.52,4.1
-L 3.5
5.8
L 2.27,2.28,3.4
6jLa 2.21
J La 2.28
jLa- 2.29,2.30
jalLa 4.25,5.14,5.19,5.20
j_^La 2.21,2.44
La La 2.27
j La La 2.27
jLLa 2.27
2.44,4.32
LlLa 4.17,4.40
j J J-?-0 4.20
2.47
,.<L 2.47
Ij^, 2.27
4-Glj-a 2.53
J_j-a 2.2
^X_a 4.8,4.21,4.32
глД 4.2i
>a 2.27,3.4
<La 4.9
1.6, 3.1
1.6, 3.1, 3.4, 3.5, 3.13,
3.22, 3.27, 3.32, 3.46, 4.20,
4.36,5.18
jL- 2.46
[Н-Ц* LT*] 3/7
4.20
‘-'^LT0 310
3.5,3.10
3-*0
-jl.-I3.10
[rlLf£-\r7..n?Sj^cra] 3.32
[(•>> cr»] * 313
[^1	3.22
ц1(_> 6or-0] 3.27
3.10
- 4.9
a 5.21
2.52,4.1
-_S 1.6, 3.1, 3.5, 3.25, 3,40,
3.41,4.2
d-- 3.2
1.8
-L> 3.40
520
PERSO-ARABIC INDEX
jkU 4.20
C5LL 4.20
cSL- 5.4
^L- 2.48,5.5
L (postpn.) 2.25, 5.25
4.12,4.38
tj j~i ।	i i i,ii -> *i 2.52
jL-LS . j_a> Ij_\~, 3.26-28, 4.9,
4.17
aS- 3.4, 3.6
«>aS- 2.23,3.40,3.41,5.9,5.10
2.2
2.2
aJS 2.21
2.21,2.42
-_LjAS\ 5-,	3.20,5.19
4_>}ks 2.21,2.42,4.41
j_L 2.50,2.53
cis- 5.12
<_^S- 4.1, 5.4,
-(_j)Lo2>\ JJj_xlS 5.17
Jj-j (_ySjj5_i n ~i 4.36
4.2’4.3,4.9
...<Lj ...<Lj 4.13
Jal^S 3.9
2.44
3.40, 3.42
j (vov) 1.14, 1.15
j (-M, -vu, -yu-, va) 2.40, 2.49,
2.54,4.11,5.10,5.20
lj 4.9
-Ij 2.39,5.15
5.16
jIj- 2.44,5.5
(cs)jb 5.3
Jlj 2.39,5.15
jj- 5.3
U'j 2.27
(jSiSj 4.27
Ч& 4.38
4.12,4.34
aS_o— :aS_a j— see
Jj 2.27
^j- 1.15,5.4
Lj 4.12,4.13
(l^j)L'j 2.27
5.21
(l?-) 6- 2.30
4_— (vocalic, -a) 1.14, 1.15, 1.16
(adj., adv. formative) 2.53,
5.4
4_— (noun formative) 2.53, 5.2,
5.8
4_— (Past Participle I) 3.2, 3.40,
3.43
ь- (enclitic) 3.39, 4.8
Lb- 1.5, 2.4, 2.6, 2.46, 2.48,
5.18
е;1л 2.26
jj> 2.38,4.46
aSja.jJb 4.34
<4^_a 2.42
l2s\L.jJb 2.38,4.46
J-Lu jjb 2.38,4.46
blkjjb 4.35,4.38
jj> 2.46
— ~imi д> 3.6
1.7,2.49
2.33,2.47,4.11,4.13,4.14,
4.34,4.35, 5.6
2.31,4.32
bl^oJb 2.46
«t—ft a 2.38
2.31,2.44
PERSO-ARABIC INDEX
521
j л % л ft 2.31
6.J ? л a 2.20
2.33
j^Ia 2.46
csj-* 2.31
<иь 4.9
2.38,4.9
),> .7.1 * *> t & 4.38
2.38
cu-s j j? »ai 2.38
2.38
1.4, 1.5, 1.8, 1.14, 1.15
(enclitic -e) 2.8,2.17,2.34,
2.40, 2.48
t5- (noun formative) 2.44,3.43,
5.2, 5.9,5.13
fj- (adj., adv. formative) 2.46,
2.48,2.52, 2.53, 3.42, 5.4,5.5,
5.21, 5.25
(_s- (personal ending) 3.4, 3.6
(on Stem I, etc.) 1.8, 1.11,
1.12, 1.15, 3.3, 3.4, 5.23
L> (vocative) 2.26
L (‘or’) 2.12, 4.12,4.13
L 4.12
-_.L\3ajL 5.18
JL- 2.4
5.3
3.4,3.10,3.29
5.3
jl- 3.4, 3.6
4- 3.4,3.6
3.2, 3.37,5.14
cTJ 2.8,2.12,2.17,2.28,2.40,
'2.49,4.1
X- 5.2
2.36
jJLJL 2.36,2.48
jiujSu’ 2.33
A 2 52
2.43,2.52
2.48
сЛе ”2-36
dl£ 2.8,2.17,2.36
2.51
2.29,3.4
fS- 3.4,3 6
2.29
2.5
<зё- 2 5
cL- 2.5
ajL- 34,3.6
<c2- 5.4
4- 5.3,
ci- 3 4
0*4“^"	3 4
3.4
3 4
«и- (noun formative) 5.2
230
HANDBUCH DER ORIENTALISTIK
Abt 8: CENTRAL ASIA
ISSN 0169-8524
1.	D. Sinor (ed.). The Uralic Languages. 1988. ISBN 90 04 07741 3
2.	E. Jacobson. The Art of the Scythians. The Interpenetration of Cultures at the
Edge of the Hellenic World. 1995. ISBN 90 04 09856 9
3.	M. Erdal. Old Turkic Grammar. 2000. ISBN 90 04 10294 9
4.	P.B. Golden (ed.). The King’s Dictionary. The Rasiilid Hexaglot: Fourteenth
Century Vocabularies in Arabic, Persian, Turkic, Greek, Armenian and
Mongol. 2000. ISBN 90 04 11769 5
5.	A. Alemany. Sources on the Alans. A Critical Compilation. 2000.
ISBN 90 04 11442 4
6.	N. di Cosmo. Inner Asian Warfare (500 1800). 2002. ISBN 90 04 11949 3
7.	Liliya M. Gorelova. Manchu Grammar 2002. ISBN 90 04 12307 5
8.	Sergei Starostin, Anna Dybo and Oleg Mudrak. Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic
Languages. 2003. ISBN 90 04 13153 1 '
9.	Bregel, Yuri. An Historical Atlas of Central Asia. 2003. ISBN 90 04 12321 0
10.	Ё. de la Vaissiere. Sogdian Traders. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14252 5
11.	J.R. Perry. A Tajik Persian Reference Grammar. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14323 8