Pashto clause analysis (parsing)

[یاسمینه]

When I started to learn Pashto the exercises of clause analysis helped me to understand the structure of the Pashto sentence.
I am going to present here the clause analysis, from simple sentences, then to more complicated. Maybe someone will benefit of it.


Sentence in Pashto: پروسږ کال زما د ورور سره هلته وم
English philological translation (word by word):last year my with brother with there was.

پروسږ - 'last'; adjective, masculine, singular, nominative case
کال -'year'; noun, masculine, singular, nominative case
زما - 'my'; possesive pronoun, 1 person, singular (possesive pronouns are not inflected by case - declension)
د - 'with'; preposition (in this sentence there is a combination of preposition and postposition, in this sentence the meaning is 'with'), not inflected.
ورور - 'brother'; noun, masculine, singular oblique case (this word has the same form in singular form in nominative and oblique case, because masculine singular nouns ending with a consonant don't change their form). When we are dealing with preposition and postposition (or only preposition or only postposition), a word to which the preposition (postposition refers) has to be in an oblique case.
سره - 'with'; postposition (in this sentence there is a combination of preposition and postposition, in this sentence the meaning is 'with'), not inflected.
هلته - 'there'; demonstrative pronoun, not inflected.
وم -' was'; verb ('to be'; but in fact this verb in Pashto language doesn't have an infinitive form), 1 person singular, simple past tense.

English literary translation: Last year I was there with my brother.

[tor_khan]

Yasmeenah - original sentence:

پروسږ کال زما د ورور سره هلته وم

I would not use the possessive pronoun زما , instead the pronoun زه would suffice:

پروسږ کال زه د ورور سره هلته وم

[یاسمینه]

Tor Khan, this sentence comes from a Pashto textbook.
Additionally, this example shows relation between a possesive pronoun and pre/post postion.
[A possessive pronoun doesn't change its form. It is placed before preposition, while the word to which this pronoun referes, is between pre and post position, and is inflected (declension).
Thank you for your comment - at least I know someone reads my posts

[Friend]

Yasmeena your work on languages is commendable. I want more material on french and pashto from you if you can.
Thanks

[یاسمینه]

Yasmeena your work on languages is commendable. I want more material on french and pashto from you if you can.
Thanks

Thank you for your appreciation
Unfortunately I do not have any materials on French.
If it comes to Pashto - I am going to continue and explain Pashto grammar issues. I was lucky that I could learn Pashto from the linguists speaking fluently this language. On the othr hand, I read many books to learn Pashto. In my opinion every book has had some minor or major deficiencies. What I am doing here is an attempt to present all my experience of learning and teaching Pashto.
Someone could say that too much importance is given to grammar. Everyone learns in different way. For me understanding the grammar was necessary in the learning process. So this is my vision of Pashto learning and teaching, vision of someone who has not grown up among users of Pashto language.
And please, do not think that I know a lot, because it is no true. I still learn, also from PF posts.

[Friend]

Thank you for your appreciation
Unfortunately I do not have any materials on French.
If it comes to Pashto - I am going to continue and explain Pashto grammar issues. I was lucky that I could learn Pashto from the linguists speaking fluently this language. On the othr hand, I read many books to learn Pashto. In my opinion every book has had some minor or major deficiencies. What I am doing here is an attempt to present all my experience of learning and teaching Pashto.
Someone could say that too much importance is given to grammar. Everyone learns in different way. For me understanding the grammar was necessary in the learning process. So this is my vision of Pashto learning and teaching, vision of someone who has not grown up among users of Pashto language.
And please, do not think that I know a lot, because it is no true. I still learn, also from PF posts.

Well thanks ... I am Pashtoon but Pashto language is not simple as english or any othrr language when it come to learning literraly. It has variations from area to area so I want someone or some organisation to work on its composition of grammar and dictionary which is acceptable universally.
But I wonder you being a westerner how did you get interest in Pashto. Its appreciable.

[یاسمینه]

Sentence in Pashto: ستا پلار سرې مڼې بازار ته وړي
English philological translation (word by word): Your father red apples market to carries.

ستا - 'your'; possessive pronoun, 2 person singular
پلار - 'father'; noun, masculine singular, nominative case
سرې - 'red'; adjective feminine plural (this adjective is irregular, like most of Pashto adjectives; its feminine singular form is سره (sara), masculine singular form is سور and masculine plural is سره (sarǝ), nominative case
مڼې - 'apples'; noun, feminine, plural (singular form is مڼه ), nominative case
بازار - 'bazar'; noun, masculine, singular, oblique case (this word has the same form in singular form in nominative and oblique case, because masculine singular nouns ending with a consonant don't change their form). When we are dealing with postposition, a word to which the postposition refers has to be in an oblique case.
ته - 'to', postposition
وړي - 'carries'; verb, 3 person singular, present tense (infinitive form وړل )

English literary translation: Your father carries red apples to the market.

[یاسمینه]

Well thanks ... I am Pashtoon but Pashto language is not simple as english or any othrr language when it come to learning literraly. It has variations from area to area so I want someone or some organisation to work on its composition of grammar and dictionary which is acceptable universally.
But I wonder you being a westerner how did you get interest in Pashto. Its appreciable.

In 60's and 70's there have been attempts to to develop and establish standards of Pashto language. For example it was determined that the form چه is outdated and should be replaced with چې , form دپاره should be replaced with لپاره and کښې should be replaced with کي . But then, because of the war these changes have not been widespread.
There are two books considered as informal standards of Pashto language. Both written in 60's by Russians. Nowadays you can find a number of dictionaries and textbooks of varying quality, but almost every modern book was written using these two books.
On of this book is Afgansko-Russkij Slovar by M. G. Aslanov, and second one is Kratkij gramaticheskij ocherk afghanskowo jazyka by D. A. Shafeev ( http://www.pashtunforums.com/pashto-...russian-24442/ ).

My interest in Pashto - I could say that is was a coincidence, but I know that nothing happens by accident. Anyway, even 3 years ago I had no plans to learn Pashto

[Friend]

In french and pashto there is no seperate tense for continous tense as we see in english the present indefinite tense and present continous tense is different but in french and pashto its not.

[یاسمینه]

There are lots of uniques things in Pashto, like inflection of adverbs, perfective and imperfective aspect of most of verbs in present tense (اخلم and واخلم ) which is not easy to translate to English. For sure it is not easy language to learn.
When it comes to the continous tense, there are ways to express it in Pashto. I think it was discussed in the Pashto language thread 2 years ago or so. As I remember there were following examples:
It is raining - باران لګیا دی
It will be raining - باران به لکیا وي
I am working - زه په کال اخته یم ، زه په کار لګیا یم

[tor_khan]

Yasmeenah - original sentence:

پروسږ کال زما د ورور سره هلته وم

I would not use the possessive pronoun زما , instead the pronoun زه would suffice:

پروسږ کال زه د ورور سره هلته وم

Tor Khan, this sentence comes from a Pashto textbook.
Additionally, this example shows relation between a possesive pronoun and pre/post postion.
[A possessive pronoun doesn't change its form. It is placed before preposition, while the word to which this pronoun referes, is between pre and post position, and is inflected (declension).
Thank you for your comment - at least I know someone reads my posts

You're welcome Yasmeenah. I switch between English/Pashto grammar forms without too much analysis (though it's useful to do so sometimes), so I like this thread as it gives me the opportunity to think.

Back to your original sentence, I think the simple use of commas to indicate clauses can assist in making your original sentence sound more natural.

Take for example:

پروسږ کال زما د ورور سره هلته وم

Without the punctuation (as in the original) it did sound somewhat an unnatural way to phrase it. With punctuation, it appears to work better:

پروسږ کال، زما د ورور سره، هلته وم

If I were to break/reorder the sentence then it can also work.

زما د ورور سره

is a perfectly fine way to say 'with my brother' (note stronger emphasis on my)

The remaining text as a separate clause works better when it is not split

پروسږ کال هلته وم

thus زما د ورور سره پروسږ کال هلته وم can be more plausible if the possessive زما is stressed in the spoken form.

[یاسمینه]

Tor Khan, you are right in everything you say. BUT! As I know, Pashto punctuation is very intuitive. Reading different Pashto texts I noticed that syntax and punctuation rules are not followed, the same with spelling. It is side effect of lack of official linguistic norm.
I also do not know if the rules of Pashto punctuation have ever been written down.

Going back to the sentence, my Pashtun professor of Pashto said that the sentence was correct. I think that every one who read this sentence could understand it in his own way, especially that the context of the sentence remains unknown.

From grammatical point of view this sentence is correct. As long as we don't talk about its logical structure, its interpretation is arbitrary.

[tor_khan]

I agree I about the intuitive aspect of text form/punctuation in Pashto and academically, I think your professor will more likely be right. Mine was a comment on what sounded natural on the first reading. Good going, however, for making me thing about this .

[یاسمینه]

I agree I about the intuitive aspect of text form/punctuation in Pashto and academically, I think your professor will more likely be right. Mine was a comment on what sounded natural on the first reading. Good going, however, for making me thing about this .

If you are in pensive mood, you can make analysis of your own sentence

[torkham]

Thanks yasmeena for your efforts and torkhan thanks for your evaluations.

I never conscientiously used grammar as a tool to construct sentences. i use sentences that agree with meaning and are confirmed from memory of usage. Idont know the rules!!

So this is helping me to learn and teach my son pashto with rules.