# Persian: من گرمم است



## farz

hi 
من گرمم است
Can anyone kindly tell me why the above means " I am warm" or how it means "I am warm" because the literal word by word translation means "I, my warm, it is" in my very limited understanding

Would appreciate a reply Thanks


----------



## truce

It is an expression in Persian and is the way we say someone is cold, warm, hot or....
The reason maybe is:
گرمم است >>> my warm is >>> my warm exists >>> I am warm
The same story goes for hungry and thirsty in formal Persian:
من گشنه ام است
من گرسنه ام است
من تشنه ام است


----------



## farz

Thank you for your enlightening reply.

Now I do understand the logical argument behind it.


----------



## PersoLatin

farz said:


> من گرمم است
> Can anyone kindly tell me why the above means " I am warm" or how it means "I am warm" because the literal word by word translation means "I, my warm, it is" in my very limited understanding


This construction is also used with cold, thirsty, hungry, also regionally with خسته /tired. There is a good reason for using this style with cold and warm because if you simply say: من سرد/گرم هستم, it will very likely be understood as _I am a cold/warm person _and not _I'm warm/cold._

Another example is خنک which means cool in the traditional sense i.e. _not warm _or _neither warm nor cold_, but you say من خنک هستم and not من خنکم است. I suppose if Persian خنک developed to mean 'cool' in the modern English sense, i.e. _calm; composed; under control_ then the story might change.

With thirsty, hungry and tired, you could say من تشنه/گرسنه/خسته هستم and there'll be no confusion but people still use من گرسنه ام است - من گرسنمه/گشنمه etc.


----------



## PersoLatin

farz said:


> "I, my warm, it is"


You would expect the more formal version of من گرمم است be, من گرمِ من است, in the same way دست من is for دستم, maybe this ام/م is not a possessive suffix but it can't be anything else, anyone has any ideas?


----------



## farz

thank you all for your help.


----------



## fdb

It is the same structure as in German “Mir ist es warm”. -am is here the indirect object (dativus ethicus), not possessive.


----------



## PersoLatin

fdb said:


> It is the same structure as in German “Mir ist es warm”. -am is here the indirect object (dativus ethicus), not possessive.


Thanks fdb, well worth asking the question.

Are there other examples of this indirect object in New Persian?


----------



## fdb

In Early NP (especially Šāhnāma) you have things like guft-aš in the sense “he said to him”.


----------



## PersoLatin

Oh yes, thanks.

I suppose a better example will be, گرمش است or به او گرم است


----------



## ali likes the stars

fdb said:


> It is the same structure as in German “Mir ist es warm”. -am is here the indirect object (dativus ethicus), not possessive.



Where did you get that? I've never heard anybody say that. Thinking about it though, we do say "Mir ist es warm _genug_". But only in a constellation with a pronoun.


----------



## Dib

ali likes the stars said:


> Where did you get that? I've never heard anybody say that. Thinking about it though, we do say "Mir ist es warm _genug_". But only in a constellation with a pronoun.



He seems to have "Mir ist warm" in his mind.

I believe fdb and others have nicely explained the structure of "گرمم است", but the status of the initial "من" still remains to be clarified. I think, it is reasonable to take this initial "man" as the topic, and the rest of the sentence as the comment, but I am interested in knowing in what contexts such syntactically disjoint topic occurs in Persian. Other "impersonal" constructions where it seems to occur (*Please correct me if I am wrong!*) are:
من دلم میخواهد  - I want
من خوشم آمد  - I liked

Is there any rule (of thumb) to predict when and where to use such a topic-comment construction?


----------



## ali likes the stars

Dib said:


> Is there any rule (of thumb) to predict when and where to use such a topic-comment construction?



Well if I look at all examples all of you have provided so far:

من دلم میخواهد
من خوشم آمد
من گرمم است
and then the same for خسته ,سرد ,گرسنه ,تشنه with the single exception of خنک as PersoLatin has described, they all strike me as "internal states".

These are all personal feelings that cannot be seen or felt by others. That is, this mysterious ام form is not used with any attribute visible, experienceable, or assignable by others, such as خنده‌دار ,عجیب ,خشگل or adjectives that are communicative in form of gestures or facial expressions such as ناراحت ,دلخور ,خوشحال ,غمگین ,عصبانی ,شاد  etc. Naturally, these are internal feelings, too, but they are _detectable_ by others.
Of course you could argue, that خسته is usually visible. But it is not so much the fatigue itself that is visible, but rather symptoms such as a limp body posture, dark circles around the eyes, etc.

What do you think, could this be an indicator for when to use this form? Correct me if I am mistaken.
Also, since I am uneducated in terms of grammar, I am not even sure if this is even correct or related, but take this sentence:
من گرسنم شده
This passive form with شده is used with the same logic, isn't it? You wouldn't use it with any of the non-internal attributes I have named. With these you would use regular past tense as in من عصبانی شدم.
But you can use it with every of the mentioned internal attributes.
What do you think?


----------



## PersoLatin

Dib said:


> He seems to have "Mir ist warm" in his mind.


Doesn't “Mir ist es warm” literally mean: to me/mir is/ist it/es warm, in other words 'I feel warm'?



ali likes the stars said:


> من دلم میخواهد


This is not the same, 'am' here is possessive, 'my heart wants'



Dib said:


> but the status of the initial "من" still remains to be clarified


In all above examples من/man is used to add stress, you can remove it without changing the meaning.



Dib said:


> Is there any rule (of thumb) to predict when and where to use such a topic-comment construction?


I believe these construct have evolved for verbs that are ambiguous in some situations, I mentioned this in post #4. Anyway aren't these verbs called reflexive?

Let's use خوشت آمد instead of خوشم آمد. The verb operating on خوشت آمد/_it appealed to you_, or _you liked it_, is خوش آمدن so you can say خوش آمدی, to mean 'you are welcome' and خوشت آمد to mean 'it appealed to you'


----------



## PersoLatin

PersoLatin said:


> Let's use خوشت آمد instead of خوشم آمد. The verb operating on خوشت آمد/_it appealed to you_, or _you liked it_, is خوش آمدن so you can say خوش آمدی, to mean 'you are welcome' and خوشت آمد to mean 'it appealed to you'


Another example is سرم/سرت نمیشه - I/you don't understand/comprehend.


----------



## Dib

Thank you very much for your detailed answer.



PersoLatin said:


> Doesn't “Mir ist es warm” literally mean: to me/mir is/ist it/es warm



It does. But it is not the _idiomatic_ way of saying "I feel warm".



> Anyway aren't these verbs called reflexive?



No. It is reflexive when the subject does something to itself. Here the sentences, on the other hand, lack a subject completely (only exception: دلم میخواهد). Hence, impersonal.



> Let's use خوشت آمد instead of خوشم آمد. The verb operating on خوشت آمد/_it appealed to you_, or _you liked it_, is خوش آمدن so you can say خوش آمدی, to mean 'you are welcome' and خوشت آمد to mean 'it appealed to you'



Indeed that does seem to be the source of this construction. However, the "it appealed"-construction has now become truly impersonal, I believe, in that it normally takes the "appealer" as a complement with the preposition az, e.g. از این کتاب خوشم آمد. I have a related question: We can add a topic and say "تو از این کتاب خوشت آمد", right?



PersoLatin said:


> Another example is سرم/سرت نمیشه - I/you don't understand/comprehend.



Thanks, I didn't know this expression before. Again, I am assuming we can add topics to this, and a couple of other expressions that have just occurred to me now:
تو سرت نمیشه
تو اینو یادت رفته (You have forgotten it)
تو اینو یادت افتاد (You recalled it)
Do they sound correct?


----------



## PersoLatin

Dib said:


> It does. But it is not the _idiomatic_ way of saying "I feel warm".


I thought the point this comparison was the use of indirect object which is the Persian versions, گفتش/به او گفت - گفتم/به من گفت or گفتمش/به او گفتم



Dib said:


> We can add a topic and say "تو از این کتاب خوشت آمد", right?


Yes, or شما از این کتاب خوشتون آمد



Dib said:


> t have just occurred to me now:
> تو سرت نمیشه
> تو اینو یادت رفته (You have forgotten it)
> تو اینو یادت افتاد (You recalled it)
> Do they sound correct


Yes they do, but as you know you don't need تو , I feel I'm missing the point here.




Dib said:


> Is there any rule (of thumb) to predict when and where to use such a topic-comment construction?


One rule is, the verb is always in third person singular.

گرمت/گرمم  مى شود/است (also سرد)
يادم/بادشان بيوفتد/مياد/هست
سرم/سرش نميشه/نشد
خوشتون/خوشمان مياد/بياد

also:
بدتون/بدمان مياد/بياد
خنده ام/گريه اش افتاد/گرفت
غصه ام/غمش بگيرد/گرفت
فراموشم/فراموششون شد/ميشه


----------



## Dib

PersoLatin said:


> One rule is, the verb is always in third person singular.
> 
> گرمت/گرمم  مى شود/است (also سرد)
> يادم/بادشان بيوفتد/مياد/هست
> سرم/سرش نميشه/نشد
> خوشتون/خوشمان مياد/بياد



Thanks, yes, that seems to be the case. Actually my brain finds it hard to fit these syntactically floating (if I may call them so) topics into the rest of the sentence. So, I have no intuition to rely upon to decide where it might or might not be correct. That's why I was adding it everywhere. In fact, that "yaadam raft/oftad" can be used with a direct object is also quite unintuitive to me.



> غصه ام بگيرد/گرفت



What does it mean?


----------



## PersoLatin

PersoLatin said:


> غصه ام/غمش بگيرد/گرفت


Means: To be/feel sad, to be saddened.



Dib said:


> So, I have no intuition to rely upon to decide where it might or might not be correct.


Luckily there aren't that many of them (see list below). Maybe the other *rule* (test) is, if you take the indirect object away, (e.g. خنده/گريه افتاد/گرفت or ياد بيوفتد/مياد/هست) the expression, at worse, becomes meaningless & at best will mean something entirely different.

غصه ,غم ,خنده ,گريه
خوش ,بد
گرم ,سرد
ياد ,فراموش
سر

Also گرسنه & تشنه, although these can be used without the indirect object.

It seems that Persian courses, in print or online, don't cover this and other more complex topics. I'm sure academic grammar books do, I have not looked for any.


----------



## Dib

Thanks again for your explanation and examples.



PersoLatin said:


> It seems that Persian courses, in print or online, don't cover this and other more complex topics. I'm academic grammar books do, I have not looked for any.



"Persian Grammar" by John Mace has about a page on what he calls "quasi-impersonal structures", where he explains just 3 items - khoshesh/badesh aamadan and khaabesh aamadan/bordan. That's all.


----------



## PersoLatin

Dib said:


> khaabesh aamadan/bordan


Great, so another one, خوابم رفت/برد/fell asleep also خوابم میومد/گرفت/felt sleepy.



Dib said:


> "Persian Grammar" by John Mace has about a page on what he calls "quasi-impersonal structures"


As you said John Mace calls these *quasi-impersonal structures*, I also read here that this structure was used in Middle English and some examples like, methinks/methought & meseems/meseemed have survived into Modern English, but are these the same as the Persian ones under discussion? Maybe yes, as 'me' in 'methinks' is indirect and the verb part, 'thinks', is in third person, I am not convinced.


----------



## PersoLatin

I found two French sentences (here), the first seems very close to the Persian ones under discussion:
quasi impersonal: car il li souvint meintenant del chevalier/so to him remember now of the knight/so now he remembers the knight
passive impersonal: car il m'est ensi destiné que je muire/because it to-me is assigned that I should die/because my destiny is that I should die


----------



## Dib

PersoLatin said:


> As you said John Mace calls these *quasi-impersonal structures*. I also read here that this structure was used in Middle English and some examples like, methinks/methought & meseems/meseemed have survived into Modern English, but are these the same as the Persian ones under discussion? Maybe yes, as 'me' in 'methinks' is indirect and the verb part, 'thinks', is in third person, I am not convinced.



I think Mace takes bad,khub,khaab, etc. as "dummy" grammatical subjects in this construction. That's why "*quasi-*"impersonal. "Methinks" has no such overt subject. So, probably better analyzed as purely impersonal. However, they do seem to be very similar to the Persian construction otherwise. However, one difference lies in the explicit expression of the topic. I don't think, English at any period allowed "I methinks ...", which Persian does in the equivalent construction.

Btw, "methinks" continues the Old English "þyncan", which meant "to seem" while the normal "think" continues Old English "þencan" (to think).




PersoLatin said:


> I found two French sentences (here), the first seems very close to the Persian ones under discussion:
> quasi impersonal: car il li souvint meintenant del chevalier/so to him remember now of the knight/so now he remembers the knight
> passive impersonal: car il m'est ensi destiné que je muire/because it to-me is assigned that I should die/because my destiny is that I should die



These examples seem to be in Middle French (maybe even Old French, but I kinda expect to see "destinez" for OF), so I won't claim to understand the constructions 100%. Here the dummy subject (as is also common in modern French) seems to be a meaningless "il" like the "it" in English "it rains". I wonder if an explicit topic can be added to these sentences in (Old/Middle/Modern) French.


----------



## PersoLatin

Dib said:


> Btw, "methinks" continues the Old English "þyncan", which meant "to seem" while the normal "think" continues Old English "þencan" (to think).


Interesting, I suppose "þencan" from French penser.


There's also درد* گرفتن-آمدن/to hurt, دردش گرفت/it hurt him

List so far:
غصه ,غم ,خنده ,گريه
خوش ,بد
گرم ,سرد
ياد ,فراموش
سر
درد


----------



## Dib

PersoLatin said:


> Interesting, I suppose "þencan" from French penser.



No, no, the first letter (þ) is called "thorn" and pronounced like modern English "th". It was used in Old English, Old Norse, etc. and is still used in Modern Icelandic.


----------



## PersoLatin

Dib said:


> No, no, the first letter (þ) is called "thorn" and pronounced like modern English "th".


Oops


----------



## PersoLatin

PersoLatin said:


> List so far:
> غصه ,غم ,خنده ,گريه
> خوش ,بد
> گرم ,سرد
> ياد ,فراموش
> سر
> درد



Persian future tense has similar construction as above:
من این کار را خواهم کرد -  man in kâr râ xâham kard - I will perform/do this [task]
او مرا خواهد دید -          u marâ xâhad did              - She will see me
آن ها در آنجا خواهند بود -   ânhâ dar ânjâ xâhand bud  - They will be there

where کرد, دید and بود etc. are always in third person singular (and curiously in the past tense).


----------



## Derakhshan

PersoLatin said:


> List so far:
> غصه ,غم ,خنده ,گريه
> خوش ,بد
> گرم ,سرد
> ياد ,فراموش
> سر
> درد


Some dialects have یخش زد "he froze", یخمون زد "we froze" etc.

Also in some dialects you have _garmâše_/_sarmâše_ (گرما/سرما اش است) rather than گرمش/سردش است.

This topic reminds me of this passive/impersonal construction MP:

_*harw čē-t kāmag ast* *xwāh* tā-t daham_

“*Ask everything you wish*, so that I shall give it to you!”

I guess these sort of passive constructions were more common in the past. There are examples of modal verbs شایستن and بایستن being used passively in CP:

به نیمشب *اگرت *آفتاب* می‌باید*

"*If you want* a sun at midnight..."
-Hafez

جان بر افشان *اگرت* صحبت جانان *باید*

"Sacrifice your soul *if you want* the company of your beloved"
-Khwaju Kermani

*مارا* *نشاید* که در حضرت پادشاهان جز براستی *سخن* *گفتن*

"*We cannot speak* anything but truth in the presence of kings"
-Saadi (Golestan)

And of course we have the ergative/passive for past transitive verbs of MP. So کردم would be _*(u)-m kard*_, دیدمت would be _*(u)-m dīd hē*_ (it would be like saying in NP: امروزم دیدی instead of امروز دیدمت). Of course, this is still the normal state of affairs in dialects which have retained the ergative past.


----------



## Derakhshan

fdb said:


> It is the same structure as in German “Mir ist es warm”. -am is here the indirect object (dativus ethicus), not possessive.


I've been thinking about this. I think what this means is, we can view these constructions like this:

گرسنه ام است = *to me, hunger is.
*
In the same way that

مرا کتاب است = *to me, a book is. = I have a book.*

Now it is clear to me why the above possessive construction is no longer used. Here را marks the indirect object in the statement "to me, a book is". Once را developed in such a way that it only marked direct objects, statements like مرا کتاب است became no longer viable.

However, instead of را, it could be expressed with an enclitic pronoun like the other examples in this thread, and we could have had:

كتابم است

And this possessive construction is in fact used in some Iranian dialects, like in Lari: *ketâbom e *= کتاب دارم. Usually dialects which have retained split-ergativity.


PersoLatin said:


> I suppose a better example will be, گرمش است or به او گرم است


Or: او را گرم است since را marked indirect objects too.


----------



## Derakhshan

https://rjhll.basu.ac.ir/article_1318_8314cf9b61da5770a3f50dfa9e507faa.pdf

The above paper claims passive constructions of this type are a reflex of ergativity in NP.

In ENP and CP they are often expressed with را rather than pronominal enclitics, as we can see in this line from Shahnama:

شه پرمنش *را* خوش آمد سخن

Which in modern NP would be rendered:

شه پرمنش *خوشش* آمد سخن

And it's the same reason why these constructions using باید and بایست were so common:

ترا باید رفت

In modern NP:

باید بروی


----------

