# Persian: کتاب گرفت



## Lahore da munda

پرویز کتاب گرفت

Does this mean "Parviz took a book" or "Parviz took books"?


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## truce

It means both of them. But if you want to emphasize that he took / got one book it could be said as:
پرویز یک کتاب گرفت
Or
پرویز کتابی گرفت
And in spoken Farsi:
پرویز یه کتابی گرفت


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## Moon boy

I agree with truce. Also, you could say

پرویز یک کتابی گرفت
I don't know if this is formal or not though.


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## colognial

Lahore da munda said:


> پرویز کتاب گرفت
> 
> Does this mean "Parviz took a book" or "Parviz took books"?



Hi, Lahore da munda. I find the answers given to your question complete in themselves. However, as a side issue, the verb in your sentence is meant to refer to 'buying' a book or books, is it not? Because if the verb گرفت happens here to just mean "took" or "held", then the insertion of a را  after the direct object (کتاب) is definitely called for.


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## Lahore da munda

colognial said:


> Hi, Lahore da munda. I find the answers given to your question complete in themselves. However, as a side issue, the verb in your sentence is meant to refer to 'buying' a book or books, is it not? Because if the verb گرفت happens here to just mean "took" or "held", then the insertion of a را  after the direct object (کتاب) is definitely called for.



Actually, I don't know what it is supposed to mean. I came across it somewhere. If it had been کتاب داد or کتاب خرید or کتاب فروخت instead, would the same two possibilities still apply?

I.e.

He gave a book/books.
He bought a book/books.
He sold a book/books.


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## truce

Lahore da munda said:


> Actually, I don't know what it is supposed to mean. I came across it somewhere. If it had been کتاب داد or کتاب خرید or کتاب فروخت instead, would the same two possibilities still apply?
> 
> I.e.
> 
> He gave a book/books.
> He bought a book/books.
> He sold a book/books.


Yes, in theses sentences "كتاب" could mean both "book" and "books".
Look at the following example:
او به من كتاب داد >>> He gave me books / one book.
Note that most of the times we do not say "او به من كتابها داد" in this way.
We might say "اون كتابا رو به من داد" or " او كتابها را به من داد".


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## colognial

truce said:


> Yes, in theses sentences "كتاب" could mean both "book" and "books".
> Look at the following example:
> او به من كتاب داد >>> He gave me books / one book.
> Note that most of the times we do not say "او به من كتابها داد" in this way.
> We might say "اون كتابا رو به من داد" or " او كتابها را به من داد".



True.

A way to think about it is, in the sentence quoted the verb is a composite one, namely, کتاب گرفتن (to bookbuy). Of course, Lahore da munda, this is NOT how Persian grammar handles these situations, but I believe this is a valid approach to understanding the true sense of such constructions.

As you know, in English there are composite words such as window-shopping, homeowner, coffeemaker. Imagine an English speaker using the rules of grammar to make up sentences such as, "I window shopped in the afternoon" (actually in common usage), "she homeowns", or "The appliance coffeemade while I took a bath". You would not think of asking how many shop windows I window shopped at, whether she owns one home or several homes, or how many cups of coffee were made. It is the same with این زن قبلاً بچه زاییده است , او کتاب گرفت (= this woman has already borne offspring) , or بی نام تو نامه کی کنم باز (= I should never begin to write a book without beginning it in your name.)


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## James Bates

By the way, doesn't نامہ mean "letter"? You wrote:

 بی نام تو نامه کی کنم باز (= I should never begin to write a book without beginning it in your name.)

I believe this is from one of Nezami-e Ganjavi's works (لیلی و مجنون). Or perhaps it's by Nezami-e Aruzi-e Samarghandi.


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## truce

James Bates said:


> By the way, doesn't نامہ mean "letter"? You wrote:
> 
> بی نام تو نامه کی کنم باز (= I should never begin to write a book without beginning it in your name.)
> 
> I believe this is from one of Nezami-e Ganjavi's works (لیلی و مجنون). Or perhaps it's by Nezami-e Aruzi-e Samarghandi.


To me it means:I will never open any letter envelope (start reading any letter) without saying your name first(به نام خدا).


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## curious boy

James Bates said:


> By the way, doesn't نامہ mean "letter"?


I agree with colognial about the meaning of the poem. I think nAme here means book which is referring to _"leyli va majnoon". _but my interpretation is: I won't start any work without saying your name.


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## James Bates

What does kay mean in بی نام تو نامه کی کنم باز? Doesn't it mean "when"?
As in خفتہ خفتہ را کی کند بیدار


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## curious boy

not exactly. I think the exact meaning is *چطور (می توانم)* نامه را بی نام تو باز کنم = how can  open the letter without (saying) your name.


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## PersoLatin

James Bates said:


> What does kay mean in بی نام تو نامه کی کنم باز? Doesn't it mean "when"?
> As in خفتہ خفتہ را کی کند بیدار


Hi curious boy, I'm afraid کی does mean 'when', as it does in the second example, the line is simplicity itself and doesn't need reinterpretation, "when do I open a book (letter) without [uttering] your name"


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## colognial

James Bates said:


> By the way, doesn't نامہ mean "letter"? You wrote:
> 
> بی نام تو نامه کی کنم باز (= I should never begin to write a book without beginning it in your name.)
> 
> I believe this is from one of Nezami-e Ganjavi's works (لیلی و مجنون). Or perhaps it's by Nezami-e Aruzi-e Samarghandi.



Ganjavi. I agree with curious boy above. When the poet uses the word نامه, he is referring, I believe, not to a 'letter' or 'postcard', nor to an inscribed and bound book per se, but to writing. Again, نامه باز کردن means 'to begin to create a work of literature', more literally, 'to begin to write'.


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## colognial

PersoLatin said:


> Hi curious boy, I'm afraid کی does mean 'when', as it does in the second example, the line is simplicity itself and doesn't need reinterpretation, "when do I open a book (letter) without [uttering] your name"



PersoLatin, neither example is so straightforward as you say. It is so, however, if you are already familiar with the use, the fairly common use, of 'when' (کِی, pronounced 'kay') in rhetorical questions: خفته را خفته کِی کند بیدار is not an actual question about when one sleeping individual is going to awaken another, but an assertion of the fact that this just cannot ever happen. In the same way, when one says "من کِی گفتم او را دوست دارم", what one probably means is that 'I never did say I loved her'.


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## curious boy

James Bates said:


> بی نام تو نامه کی کنم باز


This kind of sentence is called پرسش انکاری in which the question is affirmative and the answer is negative there is also another question called پرسش تاکیدی in which the question is negative and the answer is affirmative = مگر تو فردا نمی خواهی بروی مدرسه؟ (aren't you going to school tomorrow?)

I thought this would be helpful


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## James Bates

colognial said:


> PersoLatin, neither example is so straightforward as you say. It is so, however, if you are already familiar with the use, the fairly common use, of 'when' (کِی, pronounced 'kay') in rhetorical questions: خفته را خفته کِی کند بیدار is not an actual question about when one sleeping individual is going to awaken another, but an assertion of the fact that this just cannot ever happen. In the same way, when one says "من کِی گفتم او را دوست دارم", what one probably means is that 'I never did say I loved her'.



You accidentally placed a کسرہ under the first letter of کی. It should have been a فتحہ, because it means "when", not "who".


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## colognial

Thank you, curious boy! There is also 'چه گویم ات که ز سوز درون چه می بینم/ ز اشک پرس حکایت که من نی ام غماز'. Does this چه گویم ات type of question has a special name, too? Because it is obvious the poet is not asking what to say.


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## colognial

James Bates said:


> You accidentally placed a کسرہ under the first letter of کی. It should have been a فتحہ, because it means "when", not "who".



There is 'ki' ('key') meaning 'who', and then there is 'kay', 'when'.


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## James Bates

colognial said:


> There is 'ki' ('key') meaning 'who', and then there is 'kay', 'when'.



Yes.
کِی is pronounced exactly like the English word "key"
کٓی is pronounced exactly like the name of the English letter "k"


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## curious boy

colognial said:


> Does this چه گویم است type of question has a special name, too? Because it is obvious the poet is not asking what to say.


I didn't find anything whether it's a new kind of question. perhaps it is پرسش انکاری ,too.


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## colognial

curious boy said:


> I didn't find anything whether it's a new kind of question. perhaps it is پرسش انکاری ,too.



As it implies a negation ("There's nothing I could say to you"), we could perhaps christen it a پرسش نافی!


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## colognial

James Bates said:


> Yes.
> کِی is pronounced exactly like the English word "key"
> کٓی is pronounced exactly like the name of the English letter "k"



In Iranian Persian, the first کِی is pronounced 'kay' and means 'when', while the second one, which by the way doesn't exist as a word, would be pronounce 'kayy', with the 'a' sounding like 'a' in 'hat'. Finally, we have کی (ki), 'who'.


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## James Bates

kaaf followed by a kasre is pronounced like the name of the English letter "k"? That's weird! I thought it was pronounced like the English word "key".


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## PersoLatin

James Bates said:


> kaaf followed by a kasre is pronounced like the name of the English letter "k"? That's weird! I thought it was pronounced like the English word "key".


کی for 'when' rhymes with English 'day' or the name of the English letter "k" (I transliterate this as 'key' i.e. with 'e' as it is a kasré)
کی for 'who' is the same as English 'key' (ki)


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## colognial

James Bates said:


> kaaf followed by a kasre is pronounced like the name of the English letter "k"? That's weird! I thought it was pronounced like the English word "key".



James, if the _kaaf_ with a _kasre_ underneath it was just there on the page, that is, if it was not followed by another letter, like so, کِـ, would you pronounce it like 'ke' in 'kennel' or like 'ki' in 'kitchen'?


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## James Bates

I would pronounce kaaf + kasre like the "ki" in "kitchen", probably because that's how it's pronounced in Arabic and Urdu. But in Persian it would be different.


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## truce

James Bates said:


> I would pronounce kaaf + kasre like the "ki" in "kitchen", probably because that's how it's pronounced in Arabic and Urdu. But in Persian it would be different.


In Persian "kaaf+kasre" is pronouned the same as "ke" in "kept" and "unkempt"


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## colognial

I see. I should not have guessed that Arabic was different to Persian in this. 

Well, in Persian, or at least in Iranian Persian, a کِـ is always a kennel ke. This is why the word for 'when' is spelled کِی (kay).

Examples: کِلید ('kelleed', the word for a key), کِتاب ('kettaab', the word for a book).


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## James Bates

Interesting! So کلید and کتاب both have شدہ on the second letter?


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## colognial

Of course not! I put the double letters in the transcriptions for کلید and کتاب specifically for your benefit, James! They're supposed to guide you to the correct pronunciation! Don't go imagining there are sheddas anywhere in these two words! Just remember to observe the 'e' sound! No sheddas, and 'e' as in 'pen', 'bed', etc.!


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