# Persian: داشتن



## Ali Smith

سلام

Is داشتن used in formal Persian to denote the continuous tense? For example,

بہ والدین خود محبت کنید
شما آنقدر مشغولِ بزرگ شدن ھستید
کہ فراموش می کنید آنہا دارند پیر می شوند

Love your parents
You are so busy growing up
That you forget that they are getting old.

Thanks!


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## PersoLatin

Ali Smith said:


> Is داشتن used in formal Persian to denote the continuous tense? For example,


Yes.


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## Ali Smith

Thanks! My textbook says that the use of داشتن to denote a continuous tense is confined to colloquial Persian, e.g. دارم می خورم 'I am eating.'

I was under the impression that one could _not_ say دارم می خورم in formal Persian, and one would have no choice but to use می خورم, which could also mean 'I eat.' (just like French _Je mange._ could mean either 'I am eating.' or 'I eat.').


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## mannoushka

I am more inclined to think of داشتن کاری کردن as an informal construction. But I feel it would readily fall into place in formal speech and writing if it were given a chance.


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## PersoLatin

Of course for دارم میخورم you can say, دز حال خوردن هستم but to me that’s formal for the sake of it, I find these rules about calling actual fully Persian  terms colloquial, baffling, just because something is used by everyone from all classes in every type of setting, doesn’t lower its register.

 پدر و مادرت دارن پیر میشن is colloquial & impolite, not because of داشتن but because of دارن and مادرت instead of دارند & مادرتان.


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## mannoushka

PersoLatin, you make a valid point about what has been termed Faarsi e Shekaste (فارسیِ شکسته) being in effect the high point of informality and the overshadowing feature in all colloquial utterances. This chipped and chiseled Persian is being used all over the media for spoken and written communication as if it were standard, and yet the more it feels like a compelling force, the more it is perceived as exhibiting less authority. می‌شوند and دارند are somehow well established and are not "getting old" and dying out, not just yet. But to go back, our grammar books do continue to pronounce the construction in question colloquial, perhaps because, unlike خواستن, there is no logic in using داشتن as an auxiliary in the construction of the continuous tenses. I don't know about a possible etymological reason, but the present meaning of the verb certainly doesn't justify its use, whereas with خواستن, the notion of intention and future action is already hidden in the meaning. Still, and this is just a personal feeling, داشتن to signal continuous action will not sound so jarring in any context or register, if only because there isn't any other verb in the lexicon that can better serve the purpose. All our verbs, as far as I can see, are equally inadequate, and داشتن just got there first.


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## PersoLatin

mannoushka said:


> our grammar books do continue to pronounce the construction in question colloquial


There lies the problem, they tend to copy one another, no one offers an alternative formal way of saying it, only word for word repetition of the same thing without explaining why.



mannoushka said:


> unlike خواستن, there is no logic in using داشتن as an auxiliary in the construction of the continuous tenses. I don't know about a possible etymological reason, but the present meaning of the verb certainly doesn't justify its use, whereas with خواستن, the notion of intention and future action is already hidden in the meaning.


Ok how do you otherwise say 'I am/was doing x' without داشتن, in Persian?



mannoushka said:


> می‌شوند and دارند are somehow well established and are not "getting old" and dying out, not just yet.


Can you please explain this, I don't understand what you mean.


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## Qureshpor

I have mentioned this before and will mention it again. I have read in a scholarly paper that "First appearance of continuous tense with داشتن is observed in 1888". I made a note of this but unfortunately did not write down the paper in question. 

It appears therefore that this usage with داشتن is 133 years old, at least in print. In speech it could be much longer. Bearing this in mind, I would say it is about time it stops being labelled as "colloquial" and is given a respectable place in the modern Persian language of Iran.

Urdu has a similar development. If I wanted to write "He used to say" or "He was saying", there was only one form which provided this meaning and one could work out from the context which tense was being implied.

وہ کہتا تھا vuh kahtaa thaa.... He used to say/He was saying... می نوشت

Then another tense came into existence which provided only the continous meaning.

وہ کہہ رہا تھا vuh kah rahaa thaa..... He was saying.... داشت می نوشت

The verb used to provide this continuous meaning is equivalent to the Persian verb ماندن to remain.


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## Qureshpor

PersoLatin said:


> Ok how do you otherwise say 'I am/was doing x' without داشتن, in Persian?



I think in the right context, می کنم / می کردم could mean " I am doing/I was doing.

In the OP's quote..

بہ والدین خود محبت کنید
شما آنقدر مشغولِ بزرگ شدن ھستید
کہ فراموش می کنید آنہا دارند پیر می شوند

کہ فراموش می کنید could be interpreted as both "that you forget" AND "that you are forgetting".


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## PersoLatin

Qureshpor said:


> I have mentioned this before and will mention it again. I have read in a scholarly paper that "First appearance of continuous tense with داشتن is observed in 1888". I made a note of this but unfortunately did not write down the paper in question.


I seem to remember this, thank you.

Someone needs to tell only one text book author about this, the rest will follow.



Qureshpor said:


> It appears therefore that this usage with داشتن is 133 years old, at least in print. In speech it could be much longer. Bearing this in mind, I would say it is about time it stops being labelled as "colloquial" and is given a respectable place in the modern Persian language of Iran.


I am sure it has been in colloquial use for much longer, like many other so called 'colloquial' words that play a key role in spoken Persian, yet they are excluded from formal Persian e.g. the suffix e/é which is definite article marker, as in "mardé âmad/The man arrived", to avoid this they often rephrase it as "ân mard âmad/That man arrived", or "mardi ké...", that's ridiculous.

I remember you found another scholarly study that said about this marker.


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## Qureshpor

I have found the article.

(PDF) Have-progressive in Persian: A case of pattern replication?

Have-progressive in Persian: A case pattern replication? Narges Nematollahi (The University of Arizona)

"Modern Persian, also known as Farsi, has recently developed a periphrastic verbal construction to express the progressive aspects which uses the auxiliary daashtan (inf) /daar (pres.stem) "to have". This construction was first reported in colloquial Persian by Zhukovskij (1888) and according to Windfuhr & Perry, it has not yet fully integrated into literary Persian...."

My mistake (see post 8). Reading this article, it appears that in 1888 Zhukovskij reported the existence of this form in the colloquial language. So, it is quite conceivable that it was there before 1888. According to this article, this progressive tense can not be negated, amongst other restrictions! (see the article)

More on this from FROM OLD TO NEW PERSIAN (page 49)

"The post-classical creation of a progressive present and past with the auxiliary dāštan ‘to have’ is also relevant:

dār-am mi-rav-am ‘I am going’, dāšt-am mi-raft-am ‘I was going’.

This periphrasis probably originated from northern or central Persian dialects and is little at-tested in the literary language (Jeremiás 1993)."

Regaring the definite article suffix, see page 50 onwards..from FROM OLD TO NEW PERSIAN


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## mannoushka

PersoLatin said:


> There lies the problem, they tend to copy one another, no one offers an alternative formal way of saying it,


There are alternatives on offer. But I agree with you that داشتن as an auxliary is a good extra tool.


PersoLatin said:


> Ok how do you otherwise say 'I am/was doing x' without داشتن, in Persian?


My point is, there isn't another verb that can be applied which will work better than داشتن.


PersoLatin said:


> Can you please explain this


This is not directly about داشتن and may be forgotten about. You pointed out that فارسی شکسته was what made the auxiliary verb in question appear colloquial. So I was thinking about your remark.


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## PersoLatin

Thanks for the references Qureshpor sir.



Qureshpor said:


> dār-am mi-rav-am ‘I am going’, dāšt-am mi-raf-am ‘I was going’.


Yes.

These also have a different use : "داشتم می رفتم /I was about to go" as well as "I was going", same applies to the present tense.



Qureshpor said:


> According to this article, this progressive tense can not be negated, amongst other restrictions! (see the article)


Negating it in present tense doesn't make sense in Persian.

There's a negated version (where the main verb is negated as expected) *داشتم *‏نمی رفتم which means "*I nearly changed my mind about* going"

There's another tense (third person singular only) "داشته می رفته/she had been about to go", as opposed to "داشت می رفت/she was going/about to go". I couldn't see the tense I just mentioned in the article although داشته باشه is mentioned but strangely I can't make a meaningful sentence with it, only when if داشته باشه means 'to have', also داشته بوده is missing & you can make meaningful sentences: شاید داشته بوده میرفته/perhaps she was about to leave


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## Derakhshan

The classical language has no present progressive; in Iranian the progressive with داشتن is permissible. But it should be emphasized that progressive periphrasis with داشتن is only a thing in Iranian Persian; Afghan Persian has no explicit present progressive construction, and Tajik uses ایستادن as an auxiliary instead. So if you were trying to be agnostic to national dialects, you should avoid it.

I'm not opposed in principle to vernacular features being adopted into the standard language. The use of the prefixes _be_- for the subjunctive and _mi_- for the indicative, is itself something that came from the vernacular; in Classical Persian, and written Persian until relatively recently, the plain verb without any prefix (e.g. رود) was used in places where today it would be می‌رود or برود. This was likely already a feature of the vernaculars for a long time before it leaked into the standard language. Although, the difference here being that it was present across the whole Persian-speaking sphere before becoming standard, unlike progressive داشتن.


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## Qureshpor

Derakhshan said:


> The classical language has no present progressive; i


I would say, depending on context, Classical Persian did have the progressive but there was *no specific form* for it. Here are a couple of examples from Sa'di.

یک شب تأمل ایّامِ گذشتہ مے کردم۔۔۔۔۔

yak shab ta'mmul-i-ayyaam-i-guzashtah me-kardam..

One night *I was pondering* over the days gone by....


چشمانش ھمچنان در چشمخانہ ھمے گردید

chashmaan-ash ham-chunaan dar chashm-xaanah hame-garded

His eyes *were still revolving* in the sockets...

۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔


(آن مرد را بشارت دھید قصّاب ھمے آید (چھار مقالہ

aan mard ra bashaarat dihiid qassaab hame-aayad

Give good news to that man that *the butcher is coming*.

گفت ای پیر گوز  مے کاری؟

guft ai piir gauz me-kaarii?

He said, "Old man! *Are you planting* a walnut (tree)?

بوی جوی مولیان آید ھمے
یاد یار مھربان آید ھمے

boy-i-joy-muuliyaan aayad hame
yaad-i-yaar-i-mihrbaan aayad hame

The scent of Muuliyaan stream *is coming*
The memory of a kind friend *is coming*


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## Qureshpor

mannoushka said:


> Still, and this is just a personal feeling, داشتن to signal continuous action will not sound so jarring in any context or register, if only because there isn't any other verb in the lexicon that can better serve the purpose. All our verbs, as far as I can see, are equally inadequate, and داشتن just got there first.


Just for your interest, Urdu too did not have a specific continuous tense and context provided the continuous form using the form which also gave habitual meaning. Then (I don't know exactly when), the verb "rahnaa" (Persian equivalent "maandan") " to remain" began to be used and now and for a long time it has become the continuous form in both speech and writing. In essence, what I am saying is "maandan" would have been a better choice but now I believe it is too late.


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## Derakhshan

Qureshpor said:


> I would say, depending on context, Classical Persian did have the progressive but there was *no specific form* for it.


Yes, there is no explicit progressive verb form, but the marker _(ha)mē_ was used to convey progressive action. 


Qureshpor said:


> Just for your interest, Urdu too did not have a specific continuous tense and context provided the continuous form using the form which also gave habitual meaning. Then (I don't know exactly when), the verb "rahnaa" (Persian equivalent "maandan") " to remain" began to be used and now and for a long time it has become the continuous form in both speech and writing. In essence, what I am saying is "maandan" would have been a better choice but now I believe it is too late.


Khaleeji Arabic uses قاعد or جالس ("sitting") to form the progressive. Tajik uses ايستادن (_xonda istoda ast_ = "he is reading"). The logic here is that sitting and standing are actions that have a continuous state ("I read sitting/standing" = I read continuously). Different dialects and languages in Iran have different strategies to convey the progressive, like "I am in reading (infinitive)". داشتن "to have" in Iranian Persian is not so transparent as to how it's supposed to convey progressive action.


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## PersoLatin

Derakhshan said:


> داشتن "to have" in Iranian Persian is not so transparent as to how it's supposed to convey progressive action.


if standing & sitting can convey progressive action then داشتن in its ‘to hold’ sense, is just as qualified & so is  ماندن ‘to stay/remain’ which is used in Urdu as has been mentioned.

The Tajik ‘ایستادن’ can also be interpreted as ‘to stay/remain’ & not ‘standing’ per se.


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## PersoLatin

Qureshpor said:


> Urdu too did not have a specific continuous tense and context provided the continuous form using the form which also gave habitual meaning.


Does that apply to other IE languages on the subcontinent?


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## Derakhshan

PersoLatin said:


> then داشتن in its ‘to hold’ sense


Right, that makes sense.


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## PersoLatin

Derakhshan said:


> Khaleeji Arabic uses قاعد or جالس ("sitting") to form the progressive.


I’m interested to know how one would say ’I am sitting’ in Khaleej Arabic using جالس?


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## Derakhshan

PersoLatin said:


> I’m interested to know how one would say ’I am sitting’ in Khaleej Arabic using جالس?


أنا جالس

"Sitting" here is not in the progressive but rather the continuous aspect. See here for more info. For the same reason, in Persian you say نشسته ام and not دارم می‌نشینم for "I am sitting". The latter rather means "I am in the process of sitting down". It's the same in Arabic. English doesn't seem to distinguish between the progressive and continuous aspects as much as Persian or Arabic.


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## PersoLatin

I asked the wrong question, I’d like to know how you’d say من دارم می‌شینم/I am about to sit (down), basically I expect to see both جلس and جالس based on what you said.


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## Derakhshan

PersoLatin said:


> I am about to sit (down)


You'd just say أنا) بجلس) for that. I don't think I've ever heard the phrase أنا جالس أجلس, it sounds awkward as you might imagine.


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