Old Iranian Online

Lesson Text

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Grammar

1 The Old Persian Alphabet

The Old Persian inscriptions are recorded in cuneiform, or 'wedge-shaped' characters based on those of the Akkadian syllabary invented in ancient Mesopotamia. Their relative simplicity suggests that they were quite deliberately modified for representing the Old Persian, and were perhaps even specifically developed for the royal inscriptions on which they are found. Each of thirty-six syllabic characters represents either a vowel or a consonant plus a vowel -- i.e., a complete syllable. In addition, there are five ideograms, or single characters that represent entire words. The script is read from left to right.

The syllabary is presented here in Roman transliteration. Each character appears in its standardized order and has been given alphabetic rather than syllabic form. Thus, distinct characters sharing the same initial consonantal phoneme but having different following vowels are transliterated by a common single consonant and the appropriate vowel (e.g., d^a, dⁱ, and d^u are seen as da, di, and du, respectively). The number of distinct characters is thereby reduced. Each character's approximate pronunciation is illustrated by a word articulated according to standard American English, unless otherwise noted.

Letter		Sound		Letter		Sound		Letter		Sound
a		gutter		k		kipper		y		youth
ā		father		x		Ger. Loch		r		room
i		sit, Ger. bitte		c		It. ciao		l		lump
ī		me		j		jest; medially azure		v		vice; medially, werewolf
u		book		t		time
ū		choose		θ		theater		s		sound
				ç		tse tse fly		š		shout
				d		dime		z		zoo
				n		never
				p		pour		h		horse
				f		fair
				b		boar
				m		moot

The length of initial vowels is not indicated in the original inscriptions but has been determined, for the most part, through etymological comparison and morphological reconstruction. It is represented throughout these lessons accordingly. The inherent vowels of consonantal syllables in the inscriptions are transcribed here by a short vowel; long medial vowels and diphthongs show an original consonantal syllable plus following vowel.

2 The Old Persian Sound System

2.1 Phonology

The phonemic system of Old Persian is considerably less complex than that of the older sister dialects Old and Younger Avestan. Middle vowels and aspirated stops have dropped from the language entirely; the number of nasals and sibilants has been reduced. The following chart represents the phonemes of Old Persian in their totality.

Vowels:		Front		Central		Back
High		i, ī				u, ū
Low				a, ā

Consonants:
		Unvoiced		Voiced		Nasals		Unvoiced		Unvoiced		Voiced
		Stops		Stops				Fricatives		Sibilants		Sibilants
Velars:		k		g				x
Palatals:		c		j						š		medial-z
Cerebrals:										ç
Dentals:		t		d		n		θ		s		initial-z
Labials:		p		b		m		f
Labial-Dental:

Semivowels:		y, r, l, v
Aspirates:		h

2.2 Ablaut

Vowel gradation, or ablaut, occurs in three degrees of length: strong, middle, and weak. The weak grade preserves the pure vowel alone. Middle grade adds an a and full grade adds an ā to the weak vowel. The functional distinctions that this generates are discussed in Section 4, below.

2.3 Sandhi

Orthography suggests that a simple system of sandhi, or rules for a change in pronunciation resulting from the combination of two sounds, was recognized. Thus, for example, doubled phonemes between words -- e.g., āpiš + šim = āpišim and vašnā + apiy = vašnāpiy -- seem to have been merged in pronunciation. Thus, two consonants were 'shortened' in speech and two vowels lengthened. Of course, such combinations may represent a graphic simplification only, but abundant examples of vowel shortening and/or the reversion of semi-vowels to vowels suggest otherwise. In these lessons, words combined through sandhi are written together in the text according to convention but analyzed separately in the analysis sections.

3 Noun Inflection

Like Avestan and most other ancient IE languages, Old Persian is highly inflected. This means that, unlike English in which syntax is primarily governed by word order and the use of prepositions, the functional relationships among the various words in a sentence are expressed by inflections, or endings, added to the stem, or base form, of a noun or adjective.

Old Persian has all the inflectional forms, or cases, of Avestan except the dative, whose function has been taken up by the genitive case. In addition to syntactic function, these inflections each also express the number -- singular or plural -- of the noun to which they adhere. The dual number found in the Avestan dialects seems to have fallen into disuse by Old Persian times, except instances of natural pairs, e.g., gaušā accusative singular masculine 'ears'. Each noun also has an inherent gender -- masculine, feminine, or neuter.

The cases are described as follows:

Case		Primary Function		English Translation
Nominative		Grammatical Subject		(subject)
Accusative		Direct Object		(object)
Instrumental		Object of Means		by, with
Ablative		Object of Origin		from, out of, on account of
Genitive		Subject of Possession/Indirect Object		of/to, toward
Locative		Object of Location		in, on, upon, over, under, at, etc.
Vocative		Object of Address		('you', or name of person being addressed)

These functions, however, are not all as distinctive as in the Avestan dialects. This is especially true with regard to the ablative case, whose singular forms have become identical to the instrumental or locative forms of various stems, either through the phonetic development of the language or by analogy with the ablative plural inflection being identical to the instrumental plural inflection. Such morphological and phonetic changes led to a similar conflation on the syntactic level, though the 'object of origin' function is primary.

The nominal inflections applied to nouns and adjectives are classified according to the final letter of the noun's stem. Each stem type takes its own set of inflections, for which paradigms are given through the course of these lessons. For each paradigm, a single word is used to fill-out the paradigm in order to aid memorization. Where no attestation of a particular case exists for the word selected, but is found for other words of the stem type, a reconstructed form is given, marked by a preceding asterisk. Where no attestation of a particular case occurs for any word of the stem type, the form is labelled 'unattested'.

3.1 a-Stem Nouns, Masculine and Neuter

Singular:		Masculine martiya- 'man'
Nom.		martiya
Acc.		martiyam
Instr.		*martiyā
Abl.		*martiyā
Gen.		martiyahyā
Loc.		*martiyaiy
Voc.		martiyā
Plural:
Nom/Acc.		martiyā
Instr.		martiyaibiš
Gen.		martiyānām
Loc.		*martiyaisuvā

The neuter a-stem nouns decline identitically to the masculine in the oblique cases. The nominative and accusative declensions differ as follows:

		Neuter dāta- 'law'
Nom/Acc. sg.		dātam
Nom/Acc. pl.		dātā

3.2 ā-Stem Nouns, Feminine

Singular:		yauviyā- 'insight'
Nom.		yauviyā
Acc.		yauviyām
Instr.		yauviyāyā
Abl/Gen.		yauviyāyā
Loc.		yauviyāyā
Plural:
Nom.		yauviyā
Gen.		yauviyānām
Loc.		*yauviyāhuvā

4 Verb Inflection

Like case endings, verbal inflections or conjugations are added to a stem, whose form then conveys the tense of a verb. These endings express person, number, mood, and voice.

The persons are three (first, second, and third), as are the numbers (singular, dual, and plural).

'Mood' refers to the attitude of the speaker towards an action. The indicative mood conveys a merely descriptive sense and is translated with the simple verb. The imperative mood indicates a command. Old Persian also includes two potential moods, a subjunctive and an optative, both conveying a sense of probability. The former suggests either future or volitional meaning, the latter conditional. An injunctive form also remains. Its exclusive function, always in combination with a preceding particle mā, is prohibitive.

'Voice' refers to the nature of the action with respect to the logical subject of a sentence. The active voice indicates direct action in the world. The middle voice signals that a self-reflexive purpose or benefit to the subject motivates the action expressed. The passive is used when the agent of a sentence is not the grammatical subject. This last construction will be taken up in Lesson 9.

The four tenses -- present, aorist, perfect, and future -- are classified by the formation of the stem, to which various sets of endings are added. Each pattern of stem formation creates a system, named for the tense it expresses. The present system is divided into two types, thematic and athematic. The thematic classes are presented below. The athematic classes and the other tense systems will be treated in subsequent lessons.

4.1 The Present Tense

The present tense conveys action that occurs at the time of speaking. It may be translated with either a general sense, as in "Darius the King says," or with a continuous sense, "Darius the King is speaking."

Stems of the present system are built in various ways. Those ending with the theme-vowel -a- are called thematic. This -a- may be added directly to a verbal root or it may be a part of the fuller suffixes -ya- or -aya-. To this stem, a set of primary endings are added.

Thematic Present Paradigms: bara- 'carry, bear'

Indicative		Active		Middle
1 sg.		*baramiy		*baraiy
3 sg.		ā-baratiy		unattested
3 pl.		barantiy		unattested
Imperative
2 sg.		pari-barā		*barahuvā
3 sg.		baratuv		unattested
Subjunctive
2 sg.		*barāhy		unattested
3 sg.		*barātiy		unattested
Optative
2 sg.		baraiš		unattested

4.2 The Imperfect

The present system also includes a preterite, or past tense, which can be misleading given the name of the system. The tense is called imperfect, and is categorized as part of the present system since it is built to a present stem. Nevertheless, it does convey a past meaning. It is formed by augmenting the stem with a preceding a and adding a set of secondary endings. It may be translated with either a general or continuous sense, as with the examples above: "Darius the King said," or "Darius the King was saying."

Imperfect		Active		Middle
1 sg.		abaram		*abaraiy
3 sg.		abarat		unattested
3 pl.		abaran, abarahan		unattested

5 Word Order

The standard word order of Old Persian is Subject-Object-Verb, with the genitive and ablative cases preceding the words that they characterize, as in lines 58-59, above:

		auramazdā		tay		jatā		biyā		utā		taiy		taumā		mā biyā
		Ahura Mazda		your		smiter		may become		and		your		family		let not be born.

Relative clauses are usually inserted between the object and verb; for example, from line 37:

		tuvam		kā		xšāyaθiya		hya		aparam		āhy
		You		...		king		who		hereafter		will be.

When there are two or more subjects or objects, the primary subject or object appears in the expected position and the secondary subject or object follows the verb. An example is found in line 60:

		auramazdā		maiy		upastām		abara		utā		aniyāha		bagāha		tyaiy		hatiy
		Ahura Mazda		me		aid		bore		as did		the other		gods		who		exist.

In reality, however, this pattern is not rigidly upheld. Frequently, the words that an author wished to emphasize appeared in the order that he wished to emphasize them, as the common refrain:

		θātiy		dārayavauš		xšāyaθiya
		[Thus] declares		Darius		the king

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