Ezafe
The Ezāfe (variants: Izafa , Izafat ; Turkish İzafet , Persian اضافه, DMG Eżāfe , from the Arabic Idafa /إضافة / Iḍāfa / 'connection') denotes an enclitic particle that binds attributes (nouns, pronouns, adjectives) to their reference nouns . This syntagma is also called an " ezāfe construction ". It is typical for some Iranian languages , which is why the Persian name has become common. It has also entered Indo-Aryan languages such as Urdu and Turkic languages .
The main functions of the ezāfe are:
- Ownership notice, e.g. B. Persian کتابِ فرهاد, 'Farhad's Book', کتابِ من, ,my book'
- adjectival property determination, e.g. B.کتابِ معروف, 'The famous book'
- Name, e.g. B. شهرِ تهرانGerman 'City of Tehran' , English City of Tehran
In doing so, real “ezāfe chains” can be formed by connecting each additional attribute with another ezāfe, e.g. B .:
- “The beautiful old house” ( Persian خانهی کهنهی قشنگ, DMG ḫāne- ye kohne- ye qašang ; Construction: House- <Ezāfe> old- <Ezāfe> beautiful , literally: "The house, which beautiful, which old")
The Persian Ezāfe -e or after the vowel -ye is spoken ; so also the DMG - transcription for younger Persian ( DIN transcription always -i ).
In Persian there are the following options for writing the ezāfe, depending on the word ending:
- after consonants: ـِ Kasre (mostly not applicable)
- to ی (ī / äi): no marking
- to ا (ā), و (ū / ou): ی Ye (after ou also without marking)
- after mute ه (a / e): ـٔ Hamza (i.e.هٔ) or ی Ye
In Urdu the following spellings of the Iżāfat (اضافت) mentioned construction on:
- after consonants: ـِ Zer
- to ی: ـِ Zer or ـٔ Hamza (i.e. ئ)
- to ے: no marking or ـٔ Hamza (i.e. ۓ)
- to ا, و: ئےYe with Hamza + Bari Ye
- after mute ـہ: ـٔ Hamza (i.e. ـۂ)
The Iżāfat reverses the usual Urdu word order, which is often associated with a certain shift in meaning, e.g. B .:
- پاکستان کی حکومت 'Government of Pakistan' in general →حکومتِ پاکستان 'Government of Pakistan' as the official name
In Ottoman-Turkish , in which the construction called İzafet is also widespread, it appears throughout with - (y) i or - (y) ı and is often graphically separated from the reference noun with a hyphen. Where the izafet in modern Turkish has obtained, it is also the labial subject and then dives into the vocalizations - (y) u and (y) above sea level - on.
The form of the ezāfe varies from language to language. In some languages there are different forms of ezāfe for the different genera and cases (e.g. in Kurmanji ).
history
The ezāfe developed from the old Iranian relative pronoun , the stem of which is ya- . Whether it developed directly from the simple relative pronoun or from the old Persian form of the relative pronoun cannot be decided. In Old Persian, the relative pronouns are a composition of the demonstrative pronouns on ha- or ta- and the actual relative pronoun on ya- , z. B. Nom.Sg.m .: haya , literally "this one".
In Middle Persian , the ezāfe can still tie entire relative clauses to the reference noun. While this is still possible in Soranî, for example , the New Persian has lost it.
The Ezāfe construction was also borrowed into Ottoman and Urdu .
Individual evidence
- ^ University of Texas: Persian online grammar and resources , Ezāfe 1
- ↑ DMG memorandum p. 17
- ↑ DIN 31635: 2011, Section 8.2 No. 4 (Persian), also Section 11.2 No. 11.1 (Pashto)
- ↑ Saeed Yousef: Persian: a comprehensive grammar (2018), p. 49 f.
- ↑ Richard Ishida: Urdu , izāfat ; Ruth Laila Schmidt: Urdu: an essential grammar (1999), p. 247