Persian nouns

Persian nouns have no grammatical gender, and the case markers have been greatly reduced since Old Persian—both characteristics of contact languages. Persian nouns now mark with a postpositive only for the specific accusative case; the other oblique cases are marked by prepositions.

Noun derivation

Persian nouns can be formed by using a number of productive suffixes and affixes. This example shows some possible derivations from the word ''dān'', present stem of the verb ''dānestan'', "to know":
* dān + -eš → ''dāneš'', "knowledge"
*dān + -ā → dānā, "wise"
*dāneš + -mand → ''dānešmand'', "scientist"
*dāneš + -ik →dānešik, "scientific"
* dāneš + -gāh → ''dānešgāh'', "university"
*dāneš + -kade → dāneškade, "college"
*dāneš + āmuz → dānešāmuz , "student"
*dāneš + -ju → dānešju , "university student"
*dāneš + pažuh → dānešpažuh, "pre-university student"

Possession

Possession is expressed by special markers: if the possessor appears in the sentence after the thing possessed, the '' ezafe'' may be used; otherwise, alternatively, a pronominal genitive enclitic is employed.

Ezafe

The اضافه (''ezafe'') (ez) construction denotes certain relationships between Persian words, among them: possession, qualification (adjective-noun), titles (Mr., Mrs.) and names (first and last names). It is similar, but not identical, to the Arabic idaafa (إضافة) construction.

Ezafe is indicated by the short vowel kasra (ـِ ''e''). Since short vowels are not normally written in Persian, it usually does not appear in text (exceptions are listed below), but it can be heard in spoken Persian. The following are some examples usages of the ezafe construction.

* Possession:
کتاب من - ''ke'tab-e mæn'', literally "book-of me", means "my book"

* Qualification:
دختر زیبا ''dox'tær-e zī'bā'', literally "girl-of beautiful" means "(the) beautiful girl"

* Multiple words can be connected through the ezafa construction, as in the following example of both possession and qualification:
دختر زیبای دوستم ''dox'tær-e zī'bā-ye dust-æm'', literally "girl-of beautiful-of friend-my", means "my friend's beautiful daughter".

And: دختر دوست زیبایم ''dox'tær-e dūst-e zī'bā-yæm'', literally "girl-of friend-of beautiful-my", means "my beautiful friend's daughter". (''Doxtær'' can mean either girl or daughter, depending on the context.)

Spelling exceptions: Ezafe, while pronounced in speech, is not usually written, but it does show up in writing in the following two cases involving words ending in vowels.

# In the case of heh, the normal heh is replaced with a 'heh yeh' which is a heh with a small 'yeh' on top. Example:

house = خانه /xā'ne/

my friend's house = خانهٔ دوستم /xā'ne-ye dūstæm/

A spelling variant for this would be a normal ''he'' with a non-connected ''ye'' following. This spelling is rare and is also not according to the standard orthography of the Academy of Persian Language and Literature.

my friend's house = خانه‌ی دوستم /xā'ne-ye dūstæm/

#

If a noun or adjective ends in alef (ا) and another noun or adjective is attached to it in an ezafe (ـِ) relationship, the letter yeh (ی) must be attached to the end of the word to carry the sound of the extra syllable. Example:

air/weather = هوا /hæ'vā/

"Tehran's weather" = هوای تهران /hæ'vā-ye tεh'rān/

NOTE: Ezafe can be written using the diacritic marker representing the short vowel zir, also known as ''kasra''. That looks like this:

کتابِ من - my book (note the small slanted line below the left-most character in the rightmost word both here and in the next example; you may need to increase the font size to really be able to see it)

دخترِ زیبای دوستم - my friend's beautiful daughter

Pluralization

The most common and productive form of pluralization for Persian nouns is with the suffix ''hā'' (ها). This is typically used for non-human nouns. Another productive plural suffix is ''ān'' (ان), used for human nouns (with alternative forms ''gān'' (گان) after the short vowel ''e'' and ''yān'' (یان) after other vowels). Many nouns borrowed from Arabic feminine forms pluralize using the ''āt'' (ات) suffix. Nouns borrowed from Arabic human forms often pluralize using the ''īn'' (ین). The most challenging type of noun pluralization is for the class of what are termed Arabic broken plurals, which are formed through internal vowel alternation. These nouns pluralize in Persian like their counterparts in Arabic.

In colloquial Persian, the plural suffix ''-hā'' (pronounced ''-ā'' after consonants) can be used with virtually all nouns, even if they take an ''ān''-plural or an Arabic plural in the written standard language. For example, one can say ''mard-hā'' (or ''mard-ā'') instead of standard ''mardān'' ("men").

{{DEFAULTSORT:Persian Nouns
Persian language
Declension