Question 1

How does می‌خوانده است give us the meaning of "allegedly used to sing"?

Accepted Answer

This is the Evidential Past Continuous tense. It is formed by adding the continuous prefix می to the past participle خوانده, followed by the third-person short copula است. Farsi uses this tense to describe a continuous or habitual action in the past that you didn't witness yourself, but rather heard about or inferred. That is why words like "allegedly" or "reportedly" are often added to the English translation.

Question 2

Why is the first verb می‌شد in the regular past continuous, while the second verb می‌خوانده است is evidential?

Accepted Answer

In storytelling or reporting rumors, undeniable background facts (like night falling, which happens everywhere) are often kept in the regular past continuous (می‌شد). The evidential tense (می‌خوانده است) is reserved for the specific, unverified claim being reported, which in this case is the ghost's habitual singing.

Question 3

What is the literal translation of شب می‌شد?

Accepted Answer

Literally, it translates to "night would become" or "it was becoming night." Farsi frequently uses the verb شدن (to become) with times of day to describe a transition, similar to how we say "night fell" or "it got dark" in English.

Question 4

Could we just use می‌خوانده است on its own without آواز?

Accepted Answer

You could, but it might be ambiguous depending on the context. The base verb خواندن means both "to read" and "to sing." Using the compound verb آواز خواندن (literally "to sing a song" or "to read a voice") makes it perfectly clear that the ghost was singing, not reading a book in the dark.

وقتی که شب می‌شد، این شبح در تاریکی آواز می‌خوانده است.

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