Intro to Inflection

In Pashto, nouns and adjectives get morphed or changed in certain situations. We call this inflection.

In this chapter we will explain why inflection happens (in what situations words inflect). In the following chapters we will explain how inflection happens with different types of words (how exactly the words change).

3 reasons to inflect:

There are 3 basic reasons to inflect a word:

1. It's plural
2. It's in a sandwich (adpositional phrase)
3. It's the subject of a transitive past tense verb

For any of these three reasons, you do the same thing to the word: inflect it!

We could call this the basic inflection. There are a couple of other special cases of inflection (vocative and ablative), but we will look at those later.

If we think of a word as a little button , then we can think of this basic inflection as pressing down the button and modifying the word slightly.

Inflecting for Reason #1 - Plural

Plain	Inflected
سړی saRáy man	سړي saRée men
ښځه xúdza woman	ښځې xúdze women

Inflecting for Reason #2 - Sandwich

Let's attach a little د ... - du ... ('s, of, possessive) sandwich to the same words and watch what happens.

Plain	Inflected
سړی saRay man	د سړي نوم څه دی؟ du saRee noom tsu day? What's the man's name?
ښځه xudza woman	د ښځې نوم څه دی؟ du xudze noom tsu day? What's the woman's name?

Inflecting for Reason #3 - Subject of a transitive past tense verb

If a word is the subject of a past tense transitive verb, we also inflect it.

Plain	Inflected
سړی saRay man	سړي ډوډۍ وخوړه saRee DoDuy óokhoRa The man ate food.
ښځه xudza woman	ښځې ډوډۍ وخوړه xudze DoDuy óokhoRa The woman ate food.

Notice how for all these reasons, the exact same thing happened to the words.

It doesn't matter if you're inflecting it for reason #1, reason #2, or reason #3. The inflection always looks the same. 🤯

Double Inflection

So what happens if you need to inflect for two reasons at once? 🤔

Once a word gets inflected, you can push or bend it even further a second time. Think of the word as a button that gets pushed halfway down, (1st inflection) then all the way down (2nd inflection).

Plain	1st Inflection	2nd Inflection
سړی saRay man	سړي saRee	سړیو saRiyo
ښځه xudza woman	ښځې xudze	ښځو xudzo
دا سړی پښتون دی daa saRay puxtoon day That man is a Pashtun no reason to inflect	هغوي سړي دي haghwee saRee dee They are men inflect for plural	د سړیو کور هلته دی du saRiyo kor halta day The men's house is there inflect for plural and sandwich
	د سړي کور هلته دی du saRee kor halta day The man's house is there inflect for sandwich
دا ښځه پښتنه ده daa xudza puxtana da That woman is a Pashtun no reason to inflect	هغوي ښځې دي haghwee xudze dee They are women inflect for plural	د ښځو کور هلته دی du xudzo kor halta day The ladies' house is there inflect for plural and sandwich
	د ښځې کور هلته دی du xudze kor halta day The woman's house is there inflect for sandwich