Reflections On Persian Grammar

This book is the first authoritative survey of the historical developments of Persian grammar, from the first attested work some 200 years ago to the present day. It examines the development of Persian linguistic thought in five different periods, and analyses the underlying assumptions of the grammars belonging to each period in light of contemporary ideas on the nature of grammar and new frameworks for grammatical analysis. This historical survey shows the profound influence of Arabic and Western linguistic thinking on the development of Persian grammar, as well as a dramatic shift of perspective from a traditional grammatical analysis to new and divergent procedures adopted by more recent schools of linguistics. The end result of this transition has culminated in less reliance on foreign influence and the emergence of more self-motivated, independent researchers in the uncharted territory of Persian grammar and its sub-components. The two comprehensive Persian and English glossaries at the end of the book will enable readers to better understand the grammatical concepts covered here.

This volume is a survey of the historical development of Persian grammar in its Western Branch, within the larger division of Persian linguistic scholarship. It focuses on the contributions of a number of distinguished scholars, including Sir William Jones, John Platts, Matthew Lumsden, D. C. Phillott, and A. K. S. Lambton, among others, who have used their deep knowledge of the Persian language, its literature, and history to illustrate its major structural properties and parametric variations. The outstanding linguistic and pedagogical achievements of these scholars, for whom Persian is a foreign language, must inspire our admiration, for the expression of which we do not have adequate words.

The grammar in this book is comprehensive, and contains all that is necessary for the student to become thoroughly familiar with the language.

Mr Elwell-Sutton's book provides a simple grammatical framework for contemporary written Persian. It is based on the characteristic idiom and phraseology of the language as it is used in newspapers, magazines and novels. The student is introduced to Persian script from the first lesson. Words are fully vocalized in the early lessons, but vowels are progressively discarded; they are, however, shown in the vocabulary. The letter-forms of printed Persian are used cursive scripts. Although the structure of the language is Mr Elwell-Sutton's immediate concern, he has given close attention to the need for acquiring a workable vocabulary. The examples and exercises thus require only a limited vocabulary of words in fairly common use - about 1500 in all. The student is also given help with pronunciation; at the ends of lessons sample sentences from the exercises are printed with diacritics showing the intonation and stress of each syllable. At the end of the book there is a key to the lessons.