Passive Voice

Transitive verbs in Pashto can be used in the passive voice. In the passive voice the object moves over to the role of the subject and the verb talks about the action being done to it.

Making passive roots and stems

To make passive forms we will just need to adjust the 🌳 roots and stems of the verb.

This can be done in two simple steps: 👨‍🍳

1. Use the long form of the roots for the stems and past participle
2. Add the roots and stems form کېدل - kedúl (to become)

کېدل - kedúl

"to become"

roots and stems

1. Use the long form of the roots

First we need to take the long form of the roots on the bottom and copy these over to the stems and the past participle.

• Use the imperfective root for the imperfective stem
• Use the perfective root for the perfective stem
• Use the imperfective root for the past participle

For example, with the verb لیدل - leedúl (to see) we have roots and stems like this in the active voice:

So let's use the long form of the roots and also copy them to for the stems and the past participle...

2. Add the helper verb کېدل - to become

And then we take the roots and stems for کېدل - kedúl (to become)

And add that to our roots and stems we made in the previous step.

Note on accent: Except for in the perfective aspect, the helper verb takes over the accent and the roots/stems from the previous step lose their accents.

Try flipping through these other verbs and see how the the active stems are transformed into the passive stems, following this recipe.

لیکل - leekúl

to write

ActivePassive

split head

Imperfective Stem

لیکـ

leek–

Perfective Stem

ولیکـ

óoleek–

Imperfective Root

لیکل

leekúl

LongShort

Perfective Root

ولیکل

óoleekul

LongShort

Neg.Pos.

Pers.	Singular	Plural
1st	زهلیکم zuleekum I write • I am writing	موږلیکو mooGleekoo We write • We are writing
2nd	تهلیکې tuleeke You write • You are writing	تاسېلیکئ táaseleekey You (pl.) write • You (pl.) are writing
3rd	هغهلیکي hagháleekee he/she/it writes • he/she/it is writing	هغویلیکي haghwéeleekee They write • They are writing

Using passive roots and stems

Once we've made our passive roots and stems we can use them follow the same verb formulas to build all the same verb tenses, just in the passive voice.

Important note: With the passive voice, we don't have an object anymore, so these phrases will follow the phrase structure for intransitive verbs. (The subject will always be )

Let's try making different tenses with the passive roots and stems we just made for لیدل - leedúl (to see)

Present

To make the present tense we use the formula:

So now we can use the imperfective stem of these passive roots and stems:

and say something like:

Subjunctive

For the subjunctive we use the formula:

So let's take our passive perfective stem:

and say...

Future

We could do this same process for the future tense, using the imperfective and perfective roots to make the imperfective future,

and the perfective future:

Past

Again, same thing for the past tense verbs. The simple past is made with the formula:

So we can grab the perfective root:

and make a phrase like,

The continuous past is made with the formula:

So we can grab the imperfective root:

and make a phrase like,

Perfect

Also same thing for making perfect forms, just follow the same formula as we learned before. (Past participle + Equative)

So we see that to make verb forms in the passive forms we follow all the same formulas as we did with the active voice, but just using these new passive roots and stems.

Examples

Difference between passive and intransitive

It's easy to confuse the passive voice of transitive verbs and intransitive verbs. Yes, both of them talk about something happening with a subject, and they both follow phrase structure for intransitive verbs. But there is a slight difference in meaning.

For example, using the intransitive verb پخېدل - pakhedúl (to be cooked) we can say:

With the intrnansitive verb, we're just describing the cooking process that the pulaw is going through.

But if we use the passive voice of the transitive verb پخول - pakhawul (to cook), then we get a slightly different meaning. Then we are saying that it is being cooked, ie. there is some unmentioned actor working on it.

Passive Voice in Dialects

It many Pashto dialects--especially those spoken in Pakistan--people add a ی - ay tail on the end of the roots used in the passive form. For example, in standard Afghan Pashto with the recipe we described the verb لیدل - leedul (to see) has the following roots and stems:

But in other dialects the roots and stems have a ی - ay tail added in so they look like this:

Here are some examples using this kind of dialect: