APs
Another building block we have in Pashto phrases in the AP (Adverb Phrase). Adverb Phrases are used to give more information about the phrase in terms of time, manner, place, degree, etc.
An AP is either:
- an adverb, or
- a sandwich
Adverb
An adverb is a word or expression that modifies the time, manner, place, etc. of a phrase.
Note on inflecting adverbs
Adverbs don't normally inflect, but they will inflect if they are words that can also be used as an adjective.
Notice how the adverb ستړی - stúRay (tired) inflects depending on who is sitting in this example:
When an adverb can also be used as an adjective it will inflect to agree with:
Sandwich 🥪
In English we have have prepositions like "with", "at", "towards", "under" that we put in front of nouns. Other langagues have prepositions that you add to the end of nouns. In Pashto we have adpostions, which are little sets of words that go in front and behind nouns. Sometimes they only go on one side, and sometimes they surround the word on both sides. Because of this we'll call them sandwiches.
These "sandwiches" are also used as an adverb to give more information for the phrase. They take an NP in the middle. For example if we want to say "in the house" we take the sandwich په ... کې - pu ... ke (in) and put the NP کور - kor (house) inside of it.
Because the inside of a sandwich is an NP we can also spice it up by adding adjectives.
We can also add a possesor it hangs outside of the sandwich. All together it's still all considered one AP block though.
Here's another example using the sandwich سره - sara (with):
Notice how when we put the word ملګری - malgúray (friend) inside the sandwich it inflects. You always inflect the inside of the sandwich except for two exceptions.