1. Family: Indo-European
  2. Genus: Iranian

Persian

WALS coordinates: 32° N, 54° E

spoken in Iran

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Persian,
  • Farsi
Routledge:
    Other:
    • Farsi
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Average
    Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
    Consonant-Vowel Ratio Average
    Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In both plosives and fricatives
    Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems None missing in /p t k b d g/
    Uvular Consonants Uvular stops only
    Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
    Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
    The Velar Nasal No velar nasal
    Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
    Front Rounded Vowels None
    Syllable Structure Complex
    Tone No tones
    Fixed Stress Locations Ultimate
    Weight-Sensitive Stress Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)
    Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems No weight
    Absence of Common Consonants All present
    Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
    Morphology
    Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively concatenative
    Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives Monoexponential case
    Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 4-5 categories per word
    Locus of Marking in the Clause Double marking
    Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Head marking
    Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Inconsistent or other
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Weakly suffixing
    Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
    Case Syncretism No case marking
    Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Not syncretic
    Nominal Categories
    Number of Genders None
    Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems No gender
    Systems of Gender Assignment No gender
    Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix
    Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
    The Associative Plural Unique periphrastic associative plural
    Definite Articles No definite, but indefinite article
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No inclusive/exclusive
    Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
    Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Different inflection
    Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related for non-human reference
    Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns 3rd person singular only
    Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns Binary politeness distinction
    Indefinite Pronouns Generic-noun-based
    Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Identical
    Person Marking on Adpositions Pronouns only
    Number of Cases 2 cases
    Asymmetrical Case-Marking Symmetrical
    Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
    Comitatives and Instrumentals Identity
    Ordinal Numerals First/one-th, two-th, three-th
    Distributive Numerals No distributive numerals
    Numeral Classifiers Optional
    Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally similar, without interrogative
    Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes No possessive affixes
    Nominal Syntax
    Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
    Possessive Classification No possessive classification
    Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Genitives and adjectives collapsed
    Adjectives without Nouns Without marking
    Action Nominal Constructions Ergative-Possessive
    Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
    Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Identity
    Verbal Categories
    Perfective/Imperfective Aspect Grammatical marking
    The Past Tense Present, no remoteness distinctions
    The Future Tense No inflectional future
    The Perfect No perfect
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Mixed type
    The Morphological Imperative Second singular
    The Prohibitive Normal imperative + normal negative
    Imperative-Hortative Systems Minimal system
    The Optative Inflectional optative absent
    Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
    Epistemic Possibility Other
    Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for either possibility or necessity
    Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality Direct and indirect
    Coding of Evidentiality Part of the tense system
    Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect Tense and aspect
    Verbal Number and Suppletion None
    Word Order
    Order of Subject, Object and Verb SOV
    Order of Subject and Verb SV
    Order of Object and Verb OV
    Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Prepositions
    Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive
    Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
    Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative-Noun
    Order of Numeral and Noun Numeral-Noun
    Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
    Order of Degree Word and Adjective Degree word-Adjective
    Position of Polar Question Particles Initial
    Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase
    Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Initial subordinator word
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase OV and Prepositions
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun OV and NRel
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun OV and NAdj
    Simple Clauses
    Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Nominative - accusative (standard)
    Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Nominative - accusative (standard)
    Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Accusative
    Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject affixes on verb
    Verbal Person Marking Both the A and P arguments
    Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking Zero in all 3sg forms
    Order of Person Markers on the Verb A precedes P
    Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Indirect-object construction
    Reciprocal Constructions Distinct from reflexive
    Passive Constructions Present
    Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
    Applicative Constructions No applicative construction
    Periphrastic Causative Constructions Purposive but no sequential
    Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
    Negative Morphemes Negative affix
    Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Symmetric
    Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation Non-assignable
    Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present
    Polar Questions Question particle
    Predicative Possession 'Have'
    Predicative Adjectives Nonverbal encoding
    Nominal and Locational Predication Identical
    Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
    Complex Sentences
    Relativization on Subjects Gap
    Relativization on Obliques Pronoun-retention
    'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is expressed overtly
    Purpose Clauses Deranked
    'When' Clauses Balanced
    Reason Clauses Balanced
    Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced
    Lexicon
    Numeral Bases Decimal
    M-T Pronouns M-T pronouns, paradigmatic
    N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns
    Tea Words derived from Sinitic cha
    Other
    Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks Logical meanings