Breakdown of فروشنده بعضی از پنیرها را نفروخت.
ازaz
from
راrâ
definite direct object marker
فروختنforukhtan
to sell
بعضیba'zi
some
Questions & Answers about فروشنده بعضی از پنیرها را نفروخت.
How do we form "some of the cheeses" in this sentence?
We use ba'zi az (some of) followed by the plural noun panīrhā (cheeses). In Farsi, you will often see ba'zi used with az to talk about a portion of a larger, specific group.
Wait, don't we usually use singular nouns after quantity words in Farsi? Why is panīrhā plural here?
It is true that after numbers and words like chand (a few), you use the singular form. However, ba'zi (some) is an exception! When talking about countable things like cheeses, it must be followed by a plural noun.
If ba'zi means "some" (which is an indefinite amount), why do we use the definite object marker ra?
Even though "some" is an indefinite amount, the phrase ba'zi az panīrhā refers to a specific portion of a known group (some of the cheeses). Because this specific portion is the direct object of the verb, we mark the whole phrase with ra.
Are the words forūshande (seller) and naforūkht (did not sell) from the same root?
Yes! They both come from the verb forūkhtan (to sell). The past stem is forūkht (used here in the negative past tense naforūkht). The noun forūshande is made by adding the suffix -ande (meaning "doer") to the present stem forūsh.