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The Changes of Meaning Undergone by Certain Persian nomina agentis in -tār (-dār)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

THE original function of the suffix -tār (-dār) was to form nomina agentis, and such is still its function in some cases, e.g. xārīdār “purchaser”, parastār “worshipper”, “attendant”. But some nouns in -tār (-dār) are now passive in signification, e.g. giriftār “taken prisoner”, “prisoner”; and in several cases the meaning has been so much altered that the original nomen agentis has become to all intents and purposes a nomen actionis, e.g. kirdār “action”, guftār “speech”.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1952

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References

page 13 note 1 i, 282–4.

page 13 note 2 i, 2, 184.

page 14 note 1 The expression does occur in Firdausī but xvāstār has the force of a past participle. See the examples given below.

page 14 note 2 A good example of this is given in Phillott's, Higher Persian Grammar, p. 399:Google Scholar

Zāy bi-farr-i tu humā'ī kunad;

sar ki rasad pīš-i tu pā'ī kunad.

“At seeing thy splendour the magpie acts the humā;

The head that comes near thee humbles itself (lit. acts the foot).”

page 14 note 3 xvāstārī, as Professor Henning has pointed out to me, actually occurs in the Ta'rīx-i Guzīda, pp. 138 and 197, in the sense of “asking in marriage” = the usual xvāstagārī.

page 14 note 4 A ἃπαξ λεΥόμενον in Müller (M 9867). This word and the whole passage in which it occurs were first interpreted by Henning, in his Das Verbum des Mittelpersischen der Turfanfragmente, p. 72Google Scholar.

page 15 note 1 Vullers, 717648.

page 15 note 2 Ibid., 68122.

page 15 note 3 The newspaper Sitāra, 14th March, 1947.

page 15 note 4 Vullers, 718669.

page 15 note 5 Ibid., 1119947.

page 16 note 1 framūt kū ataxš kunēnd tāk dūt pat avēšan asvārān dītār bavēt. (Kārnāmak ed. Ântiâ, xiii, 15Google Scholar.) “He ordered them to kindle a fire so that the smoke might be visible to the horsemen.”

page 16 note 2 Mohl, v, 41826.

page 16 note 3 Vullers, 429723.

page 16 note 4 Ibid., 72191.

page 16 note 5 Ibid., 432778.

page 16 note 6 The newspaper Sitāra, 22nd June, 1947.

page 16 note 7 uš gōr i mātak rastār kart. (Kārnāmak, ed. Ântiâ, , xv, 3Google Scholar.) “And he rescued the female onager.”

uš vacak rastār kart. (Ibid., xv, 5.) “And she saved the foal.”

u ān 4 brāt i vatbaxt hač band rastak kartan. (Ibid., xiv, 8.) “And to rescue those four unfortunate brothers from imprisonment.”

page 17 note 1 Dīvān, Tehran, , 1304–7, p. 77Google Scholar.

page 17 note 2 The Middle Persian kuštār is still a nomen agentis:… pātifras ōgōn guft ēstēt kū mōd (i) avēšān gōspandān tēh i tēž humānāk bavēt u avē i adātīhā kuštār ōžanīhēt. (Šayist-nē-šāyist, ed. Tavadia, , 1298Google Scholar.) “Punishment is thus spoken of, that the hair of those animals becomes like sharp spear-heads and he who is a slaughterer in an unlawful manner is killed [therewith].” (Tavadia.)

page 17 note 3 Xusrau, Nāṣir-i, Divan, Tehran, 1304–7, p. 77Google Scholar.

page 17 note 4 The newspaper Sitāra, 21st June, 1946.

page 17 note 5 The Sālnāma-yi Pārs for 1324, p. 132.

page 17 note 6kū pat dāt i dēvān griftār nē bavēh. (Mēnōkē xrat, ii, 40.) “So that thou mayst not be caught in the law of the dēvs.”

mā hakar marlom i deh vēnend šnāsend u griftar kunēnd. (Kārnāmak, ed. Ântiâ, , iii, 16.) “Perhaps the people of the village might see us and recognize us and take us prisoner.”Google Scholar

Nyberg in his Glossar takes griftār to bear its original meaning (‘greifend’, ‘anfassend’) in the first of these two passages which he translates accordingly: ‘damit du ein Ausüber des Gesetzes der Teufel nicht werdest.’ In the second passage he takes it for a nomen actionis (‘das Greifen’), a sense which the word has certainly not acquired in Modern Persian.

page 18 note 1 Vullers, 904684.

page 18 note 2 Ibid., 1802850.

page 18 note 3 Jamāl-zāda, , Yakī būd yakī na-būd, 4th ed., Tehran, p. 67Google Scholar.

page 18 note 4 The newspaper Sitāra, 27th June, 1947.

page 19 note 1 Such a categorical statement would have been impossible before the appearance of Fritz Wolff's Glossar. I should like to express my indebtedness to this truly monumental work, which will ease the labours of Iranologists for generations to come.