Middle Persian language †

Alternative names (including historical names and autoglottonyms): Pahlavi, Pārsīk

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Volume 5. Iranian languages. I. South-Western Iranian languages
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Genealogy

Indo-European → Indo-Iranian → Iranian → Southwestern Iranian

Geography

Main country: Iran (show on the map)

Identifiers

Glottolog: pahl1241
ISO-639-3: pal

Features

Phonemic structure

[A‑4]	Number of length degrees	Two [A‑4‑2]
[A‑5]	Vowel opposition in labialization	No vowel opposition in labialization [A‑5‑1]
[A‑6]	Vowel opposition in nasalization	No vowel opposition in nasalization [A‑6‑1]
[A‑7]	Vowel opposition in pharyngealization	No vowel opposition in pharyngealization [A‑7‑1]
[A‑8]	Vowel opposition in ATR	No vowel opposition in ATR [A‑8‑1]
[A‑9]	Diphthongs and triphthongs	No diphthongs and triphthongs [A‑9‑1]
[A‑11]	Inventory of obstruents by laryngeal features	Opposition by presence and absence of voice [A‑11‑1]
[A‑13]	Inventory of obstruents by place of articulation	Labial, coronal, dorsal, guttural and postuvular [A‑13‑2]
[A‑14]	Inventory of labial obstruents by place of articulation	Bilabial and labiodental [A‑14‑2]
[A‑16]	Inventory of guttural obstruents by place of articulation	Velar and uvular [A‑16‑5]
[A‑17]	Inventory of postuvular obstruents by place of articulation	Only pharyngeal [A‑17‑1]
[A‑18]	Additional articulatory oppositions of obstruents	Absent [A‑18‑1]
[A‑19]	Inventory of sonorants by manner of articulation	Nasal, liquid, vibrant and glide [A‑19‑6]
[A‑20]	Inventory of sonorants by place of articulation	Labial, coronal and dorsal [A‑20‑14]
[A‑21]	Additional articulatory oppositions of sonorants	Absent [A‑21‑1]

Prosodic phenomena

[B‑2]	Stress type	Dynamic [B‑2‑1]
[B‑3]	Stress carrier	Syllable [B‑3‑1]
[B‑5]	Fixed stress carrier	Ultima [B‑5‑4]
[B‑9]	Length character	Phonological [B‑9‑1]

Syllable

[C‑1]	Syllable onset	Most syllables have a non-null onset [C‑1‑3]
[C‑2]	Syllable coda	Both null and non-null ocoda possible [C‑2‑5]

Phonologic structure and phenomena

[D‑4]	Differences between content and function words	No differences [D‑4‑1]
[D‑5]	Differences between native and borrowed words	Differences in phonetic structure [D‑5‑2]
[D‑6]	Differences between roots and affixes	No differences [D‑6‑1]

Morphological type of language

[E‑1]	Type of language by type of morpheme combination in a word	Fusional with some agglutinative features [E‑1‑4]
[E‑3]	Agglutinative type features	One flection can only express one meaning, single inflection/conjugation type, no phonetic alternations in morphemes [E‑3‑5]
[E‑4]	Type of language by degree of morpheme cohesion	Analytic with elements of synthetism [E‑4‑3]

Nominal classifications

[F‑1]	Number of agreement classes	No agreement classes [F‑1‑1]
[F‑7]	Nouns classifying categories	Person/non-person and animacy/inanimacy [F‑7‑4]
[F‑8]	Opposition by person/non-person	Lexical, morphological and syntactic [F‑8‑7]
[F‑9]	Expression of animacy/inanimacy	Lexical and syntactic [F‑9‑4]

Number

[G‑1]	Number in nouns	Singular and plural [G‑1‑1]
[G‑2]	Single number marking	Unmarked [G‑2‑2]
[G‑3]	Honorific forms in pronouns and verbs	Neutral and polite [G‑3‑2]
[G‑4]	Agreement in number	Predicative and attributive [G‑4‑4]
[G‑5]	Form of a noun in numeral phrases	Singular [G‑5‑1]
[G‑6]	Numeral system	Decimal [G‑6‑1]

Case meanings

[H‑1]

Number of noun cases

No case [H‑1‑6]

Verbal categories

[I‑5]	Tense forms	Past [I‑5‑1]
[I‑5]	Tense forms	Non-past [I‑5‑5]
[I‑6]	Aspect and tense expression	Syncretic [I‑6‑2]
[I‑9]	Marking of person in present tense verbs	In singular and plural [I‑9‑3]
[I‑10]	Transitivity marker	Affix and special type of agreement [I‑10‑8]

Deictic categories

[J‑1]	Pronominal words	Pronouns-nouns and pronouns-adjectives [J‑1‑11]
[J‑2]	Expression of deictic categories	Demonstrative pronouns and articles [J‑2‑12]
[J‑3]	Function words expressing spatial orientation of action	Adpositions [J‑3‑9]
[J‑4]	Content words expressing spatial orientation of action	Pronouns and adverbs [J‑4‑6]
[J‑6]	Words expressing (in)definiteness	Articles and pronouns [J‑6‑24]
[J‑7]	Expression of politeness	In verb phrase and in pronouns [J‑7‑6]
[J‑8]	Expression of negation	Negative particles and negative verbs [J‑8‑7]
[J‑9]	Negation marker position	Preposition and postposition [J‑9‑9]

Parts of speech and inflection

[K‑1]	Personal pronouns inflection	Pronouns are not inflected [K‑1‑1]
[K‑2]	Article types	Only indefinite [K‑2‑2]
[K‑3]	Indefinite article and numeral 'one'	Same [K‑3‑1]
[K‑4]	Article place	Postposition [K‑4‑2]
[K‑5]	Position of article in noun phrase	Single article preceding the phrase [K‑5‑1]
[K‑7]	Number of conjugation types	Single type of conjugation [K‑7‑1]
[K‑8]	Verb agreement types	Subject and subject-object [K‑8‑4]
[K‑10]	Tense expressed by participle	Past [K‑10‑4]
[K‑11]	Adverb grammar categories	Degrees of comparison [K‑11‑2]
[K‑12]	Agreement categories expressed in adjective	Number [K‑12‑6]
[K‑13]	Cumulative expression of several categories in adjective	Absent [K‑13‑1]
[K‑15]	Attributive agreement types	In number [K‑15‑2]
[K‑17]	Cumulative expression of several categories in noun	Absent [K‑17‑1]
[K‑19]	Word form model	Prefixal-suffixal [K‑19‑1]

Word formation

[L‑2]	Derivation affixes	Prefixes and suffixes [L‑2‑3]
[L‑3]	Stems relations in stem compounding	Subordination [L‑3‑1]

Simple sentence

[M‑2]	Word order fixedness	Fixed [M‑2‑1]
[M‑3]	Dominant word order	SOV [M‑3‑2]
[M‑4]	Order of nouns and its modifier	Not fixed [M‑4‑3]

Complex sentence

[N‑3]	Dependent clause predicate	Finite forms [N‑3‑1]
[N‑4]	Compound sentence types	Subordination [N‑4‑2]
[N‑5]	Compound sentence syndesis and asyndeton	Both syndesis and asyndeton possible [N‑5‑3]

Unfilled features