Nouns

One of the important elements in forming compound nouns is the present stem that appears as the second element. It is used with almost all word classes to construct nouns and adjectives. These adjectives are also used as nouns: In Persian, nouns in their absolute forms (without determiners such as 'a', 'the', and so on) refer on the one hand to something definite, to what is already known from a previous context. For instance:


 * .در باز است : The door is open.

On the other hand, they are also used to indicate abstracts and generics. For instance:


 * .وقت طلا است : Time is money.


 * .زندگی کوتاه است : Life is short.


 * Generics of every kind are always used in the singular, or rather, the noun retains its absolute state in such cases.


 * Definite nouns are proper names, nouns used with a demonstrative pronoun or a pronomial suffix, as well as nouns which are specified through an اضافه construction , or which are already known to the listener from a previous context.