# Classical Persian: خفتن



## Qureshpor

Friends, I believe there are several verbs for "to sleep" in Classical Persian, one of them being xuftan. I am having a bit of a mental block for this verb. What is the present root of this verb?

Thanking you in advance.


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## Jervoltage

Hi,

I believe it is خسب (xosb).


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## OmidTavana

Some verbs has two forms of past stem. Both خوابیدن and خفتن are two verbs for "to sleep" and they have the same present form خواب. Other verbs of this property are
 گشتن/گردیدن، کوفتن/کوبیدن، رستن/روییدن
----------------------------------------------------------
فعل----------گذشته------------حال

خفتن---------خفت--------خواب *
خوابیدن-------خوابید--------خواب

روییدن--------رویید------------روی 
رستن----------رست------------روی * 

کوبیدن---------کوبید-----------کوب  
کوفتن----------کوفت---------کوبید  

گردیدن------------گردید------------گرد
گشتن-------------گشت------------گرد

*: Appears only in classic literature and some dialects

Please consult below for more information.
http://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/فعل_ساده


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## OmidTavana

Jervoltage said:


> Hi,
> 
> I believe it is خسب (xosb).


خسبیدن و خسب همان خوابیدن و خواب به گویش لری بختیاری است.


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## Qureshpor

Jervoltage said:


> Hi,
> 
> I believe it is خسب (xosb).


I thought the verb was xus*p*iidan (xos*p*iidan).


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## Qureshpor

OmidTavana said:


> Some verbs has two forms of past stem. Both خوابیدن and خفتن are two verbs for "to sleep" and they have the same present form خواب. Other verbs of this property are...[...]
> 
> فعل----------گذشته------------حال
> 
> خفتن---------خفت--------خواب *
> خوابیدن-------خوابید--------خواب


Are you sure the present form of xuftan/xoftan is xvaab?


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## Jervoltage

This is from داتا رام برهمن's صرف پارسی which might be of help:

 ف:اول بدل به باي موحده: كوفتن← كوبد و روفتن ← روبد، دوم به واو:
رفتن ← رود، سوم برحال بماند: شكافتن← شكافد، چهارم برخلاف
قياس: خفتن ← خسپد، و خوابد و خسپيدن مصدر ديگر است.
​ 


OmidTavana said:


> خسبیدن و خسب همان خوابیدن و خواب به گویش لری بختیاری است.



That would be xowsidan, to the best of my knowledge.



Qureshpor said:


> I thought the verb was xus*p*iidan (xos*p*iidan).



Both خسبیدن and خسپیدن mean خفتن.


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## fdb

Perchance a bit of etymology might help. 

The verb “to sleep” is proto-Iranian *xwap-. It has an inchoative present stem *xwap-sa-, Avestan xvafsa-, Middle Persian xufs-, Parthian and New Persian xusp- (metathesis, then -sf- > -sp- shift), whence a secondary past stem xusp-īd.

The perfect participle is Old Iranian *xwap-ta- > *xwafta- > MP, NP xuft.

The noun “sleep” is Iranian *xwap-na-, Avestan xvafna-, but MP and NP have xwāb (apparently from *xwāp-a, with o-grade ablaut), whence the NP denominal verb xwāb-īdan, present stem xwāb.


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## colognial

fdb, are you saying that 'khospeedan' comes, originally, from a verb that, roughly, sounds like 'khaab', while 'khaabeedan' has its roots in a noun, 'khaab-na', and that the former has developed into 'khospeedan' when the latter has evolved to become 'khaabeedan'? (I hope I haven't got it all wrong!)


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## fdb

That is roughly it, but do observe the difference between the short vowel /a/ and long /aa/.


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## Qureshpor

Pardon my ignorance please. In conclusion is the present root of xuftan (xoftan)...xusp/b or xvaab?


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## OmidTavana

There is no "xusp" or "xus" or "xusb" in old/new literature and in the current speaking language. There is just 
"Xusbidan (or xusbidan or xuspidan) ---> xus (or xusb or xusp)"
in Bakhtiari dialect. So, as long as literature cares, the present of "xuftan" is "xvaab".


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## Jervoltage

OmidTavana said:


> There is no "xusp" or "xus" or "xusb" in old/new literature and in the current speaking language. There is just
> "Xusbidan (or xusbidan or xuspidan) ---> xus (or xusb or xusp)"
> in Bakhtiari dialect. So, as long as literature cares, the present of "xuftan" is "xvaab".



That is simply a false claim:
از این پس تو ایمن مخسب از بدی 
که پاداش پیش آیدت ایزدی
فردوسی


چنان خسب کاید فغانت بگوش.
سعدی

​
For more instances of خسبیدن, have a look at http://www.loghatnaameh.org/dehkhodaworddetail-f2c4e1313d254848b3ba68ef0e6b6784-fa.html


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## colognial

Qureshpor, I shouldn't really be attempting to answer your question. But  I'm just going to take a chance here, if only to prompt the erudite  answerers to correct me - fdb, where are you? Come to our help, please! - to the benefit of both of us! I  think xoftan must be a derivative of the participle. I tell it to  myself, you see, like an old tale. Once upon a time there were three  words, much like three sisters. The words were xwap (infinitive), xwafta  (participle), and xwap-na (noun). Of course the three of them had the  same (not so well known) ancestors, but each had been born with her own  distinct function or position in life. The sisters grew up and left home  in search of adventure, looking perhaps to change their destiny by  finding a new function in life. The first sister decided to retain her  position and just change her appearance, so she became another  infinitive, xusp-īdan. The other sisters, too, became infinitives, the  second one becoming xuftan, while the third one, in choosing, for reasons  we will never know, to be the infinitive that would most closely  represent her original appearance, ended up being the closest of the  three to simple folks' hearts. This is why today Persian speakers  use 'khaabeedan' in their day to day speech, reserving khospeedan (or  khosbeedan) and Khoftan for formal and literary registers. But as you  can imagine happening in real life, the ancestral influence never left  the three, so much so that the three never could change their meaning,  and lived happily ever after as synonyms!


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## Qureshpor

^ Thank you, aaqaa-ye-colognial to explain this matter through "Adventures of the Three Sisters". I must be thick because I would still like to know this. If I were to use the verb "xuftan", I would say "xuftam" for "I slept". Using the very same verb xuftan, how would I say "I sleep"?


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## colognial

Qureshpor said:


> ^ Thank you, aaqaa-ye-colognial to explain this matter through "Adventures of the Three Sisters". I must be thick because I would still like to know this. If I were to use the verb "xuftan", I would say "xuftam" for "I slept". Using the very same verb xuftan, how would I say "I sleep"?



You will have to say 'man mixaabam', or 'man mixosbam'. There is no 'man mixofam' in Persian. This is quite normal, remember, because as you know roots (of verbs) invariably give form to the past tense and the participle, but not to the present tense.


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## Zeeb

Whenever conjugation problem, please go to jahanshiri.ir. I looked up and it's خواب.


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## Qureshpor

colognial said:


> You will have to say 'man mixaabam', or 'man mixosbam'. There is no 'man mixofam' in Persian. This is quite normal, remember, because as you know roots (of verbs) invariably give form to the past tense and the participle, but not to the present tense.


Thank you aaqaa-ye-colognial. It seems xuftan >xvaab is on the same pattern as:

yaaftan > yaab

taaftan > taab

ruftan > rob

aashuftan > aashob

koftan > kob


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## colognial

Dookhtan, dooz
kaastan, kaah

It suddenly occurs to me that perhaps khaabeedan falls into the group of infinitives that are made up of the imperative form of the verb.

Baar, baareedan (to rain, to pour down as rain or as a shower)
Khaab, khaabeedan
Khaan, Khaandan
Booy, booyeedan

So, I was wrong when I said above that it was always the past tense form that was used to construct the infinitive.


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## fdb

In Persian there are lots of verbs that form their infinitive with the suffix –īdan added either to a present stem (imperative), or to a noun (even an Arabic noun, as in fahmīdan). I suggested above (for purely historic reasons) that in the case of xwābīdan the point of departure is the noun xwāb, which gives the verb xwābīdan, which in turn gives the (secondary) present stem xwāb.


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## colognial

You're quite right, fdb. And now, I wonder if I could ask you to please answer an earlier question raised here: where does the origin of the infinitive_ khoftan_ lie? I ventured a guess: that it comes from the participle. But maybe it doesn't, or maybe in fact it's been the other way round, the participle originating from the infinitive. Could you please try to put me out of my misery?! Thanks!


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## kartheeque

In sanskrit, the root for sleep, has two forms - a -svap form and a -sup form. khuftan seems to be related to the -sup form. In particular, the past participle of the root -svap is supta.


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## fdb

kartheeque said:


> In sanskrit, the root for sleep, has two forms - a -svap form and a -sup form. khuftan seems to be related to the -sup form. In particular, the past participle of the root -svap is supta.




In Sanskrit svap- is the full-grade (guṇa) from the root sup-. The equivalent Old Iranian forms are xwap- and xup-. So yes, you are right: the perfect participle xuft is from the zero-grade stem.


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