Breakdown of جسد قبل از رسیدن پلیس جابهجا شده بود.
رسیدنrasidan
to arrive
قبل ازqabl az
before
پلیسpolis
police
جسدjasad
corpse
Questions & Answers about جسد قبل از رسیدن پلیس جابهجا شده بود.
How is the past perfect passive formed in this sentence?
The base verb is the compound جابهجا شدن (to be moved). To make it past perfect passive, we keep the non-verbal part (جابهجا) and put شدن into the past perfect. This is done by taking the past participle of شدن, which is شده, and adding the past tense of بودن, which is بود (for the third-person singular "corpse"). This gives us جابهجا شده بود (had been moved).
Why does the sentence use the infinitive رسیدن (to arrive) instead of a conjugated verb?
In Farsi, it is very common to use the infinitive as a noun (like a gerund in English) after prepositions such as قبل از (before). So, قبل از رسیدن پلیس literally translates to "before the arriving of the police" or "before the police's arrival." This is often much more natural than building a complex subordinate clause with a conjugated verb.
How are رسیدن and پلیس connected when spoken aloud?
They are connected by an invisible ezafe vowel. Since رسیدن is functioning as a noun here ("arrival"), it needs an ezafe to link it to پلیس to show whose arrival it was. It is pronounced as "residan-e polis".
What is the literal meaning of جابهجا?
It literally translates to "place to place" (جا means "place" and به means "to"). When paired with , it forms a passive compound verb meaning "to be shifted" or "to be moved".